Thread Closed
Old Gridania:
“‘Honor and dignity’.†Weylan spat the words, out of anger in part and out of insobriety in another, significantly larger part. A number of tankards were scattered around the table, some of whom had at least most of their contents drained. “‘Honor and dignity’. That’s what this fucking Duskwight tells me. That’s what he has the balls to tell me. To treat everybody in the Shroud with it.â€
“A fucking grey?†The man in front of him sounded incredulous, but sympathetic. “A grey told you that. Remind me how many of ‘em treat us with that kind of respect?â€
“Right?!†Weylan spread his hands wide in shock, as if he couldn’t believe anybody could reasonably tell him such things, before taking another pull on his beer, then signalling Astidien for another.
The barkeep of the Spear and Arrow sighed, but prepared another tankard. Weylan’s new drinking partner was buying, and his pockets were proving quite deep. The place was small and out of the way, shadowed from cheap candles and a dark varnish on the wood in its construction, but well-frequented, and for a very particular and profitable reason: Here was where Wailers and Quivermen alike could come for some solace, a tavern where they wouldn’t be forced to rub shoulders with the liberal-minded adventurers at the Carline Canopy or drink beside Duskwight bandits and Keeper poachers at Buscarron’s. Here they would not have to suffer the polite lie that the Shroud, by being too weak to keep the outside out, was somehow stronger for it. Business was quiet, even if the customers were loud, as Weylan was, once a few pints were in him.
“I mean, bad enough he tells me this. Bad enough. But he tells me this after they’ve been threatening me with a diremite to the balls. Some honor! Some dignity! Like I was holding out on them, or, or fucking cheating them to cancel their precious leve.†He rolled his eyes and made an exaggerated circle with his neck to emphasize it, giving a passing not to Astidien as his drink was delivered. “I ask you, what does a leve pay? Two hundred gil, three-hundred?â€
“Thereabouts,†said his companion. He’d been engaging in sympathetic listening for the most part, having introduced himself to buy a pint for the last survivor of the Sixteenth’s patrol. Weylan had nearly run him off with a few choice words, but it was clear the man meant no respect, even if he was a bit odd. What sense was there in keeping his mask on even off-duty? He was a patriot, to be sure, but Weylan could never understand the spiritual types.
“Must have cost them twice as much just to go through all this. Well maybe,†he said, pausing to take a deep drink of his ale, a little spilling down the side of his tunic in a drunken dearth of grace, “Maybe they should have done their fucking jobs instead of standing around chatting and leaving me to cart off my mates’ bodies! What they were hired to do!â€
“That’s outsiders for you, isn’t it?†His partner’s voice was rough, a mixture of wear and age in tandem. Weylan gauged him to be in his fortieth cycle, thereabouts, when he could bother to focus. The grey streaks in the dark hair were the most tell-tale sign. “Lazy shits, all of them. Ul’dahni, ‘Kotes, greys, always looking for an easy mark.â€
“Yes, right! Exactly right.†In his outrage, Weylan found, he could forget the fear the helplessness of being overpowered and tortured - oh, they’d call it something else, but that’s what it was - to give them information they’d had no right to receive, all out of spite for not being paid and an insistence that he was somehow the villain for daring to be on the same patrol as dead men. “Why do the work on a leve when you’ve got a Wailer to do the lifting, and you can stand around talking about whether some bloody red bitch is a witch or a monster?â€
“I hear you. I absolutely hear you.†It was hard to see his companion’s expression with the mask on his face, though he was far from expressionless; his lips twitched in sympathy, his brow wrinkled, and the scars scattered along his cheeks scrunched up in smiles or tugged inwards in frowns at just the right moments. “At least tell me the Adder did something about all this, though. Complaint? Fines? Even a sternly-worded missive?’
If Weylan could, he would have crumpled his tankard in his fist. “Fucking worst part of it, er - sorry - “
“Hadrian.â€
“Right, right. Worst part of it, Hadrian. I’m the one gets sent back to the Bannock for retraining an’ reassignment. Haven’t heard a word about them, you know? Might as well have been the spirits for all the effort they put into hunting them down.†Privately, Weylan was glad of it. Meant nobody would look too closely into any missing records. The fear had lasted well beyond the act of torture, and their demands had been extensive. He didn’t think the Adders would be too interested in arrest records from the last decades of the Sixth Astral Era, but one never knew.
“Nophica’s tits, nothing?†Hadrian leaned back in his stool and placed his hand against his mask, wincing in frustration. “I think that’s the worst part of it, y’know, Wey? That’s the worst of it. Shroud’s in a shambles, spirits can’t just oust troublemakers like they could. And who should be stepping up?†He thumped his chest. “Us, that’s who.â€
“Damn right,†said Weylan, irritated by the shorthand but too caught up to correct it.
“Wailers, Godsbow, we need to be stronger. We have t’be! If the spirits can’t do the job, we need to be doing it for them. Ask me, shouldn’t be a single outsider even gets near the woods before they’re bristling with arrowpoints. Ul’dahn, Limsan, Ishgardian, take your pick. Not a damn one of them.â€
“Damn right!â€
“But what happens?†Hadrian made a show of displaying his fingers as horns up at the top of his single tankard of ale, still half-full, and spoke in the lower range of a falsetto. “‘Ah, we must work with all to protect the forest from further danger! Never mind the trouble they bring, invite them all in!’†Weylan was drunk enough to laugh. “Ask me,†Hadrian finished, dropping his hands, “Only place they ought to be allowed is Sylph territory. Maybe help them clear each other out, thin the ranks.â€
“It’s true,†said Weylan, his nod emphatic, the mess of dirty blond hair falling in front of his eyes.â€Absolutely true. Try telling that to the bosses, though. Naught to be done.â€
Here, Hadrian quirked his lips. “Well, not naught, I say. Just depends on how you tell them.†He glanced over Weylan’s shoulder. Astidien appeared to be busy with cleaning and taking inventory for the evening. He leaned forward. Weylan could see, through the haze of ale, a few chips in the mask; it looked like a very old one indeed.
“No, what you do is, you show them. An’ I bet you can help me with that, if you like. But if you don’t like, I’ll say nary a peep more.â€
It was a serious question, and one Weylan hadn’t expected in an evening of commiseration and general venting of the spleen. What he heard next if he asked, he supposed, would be something treasonous. But damned if he hadn’t already done that stealing records for the adventurers, for those fucking ‘Kotes and the gods-damned grey. What was one more?
His eyes narrowed as he thought of the people who’d responded to the leve in the first place. The laughing Seeker with her flirtations and her swaying hips. The foul-mouthed Blade overstepping his bounds. And Keepers. All the damned Keepers in all the damned woods. If he was going to break the law, then why do it for their sake, when they would do naught for him?
“Go and tell me,†he said, leaning forward. “And keep it quick.â€
Hadrian grinned. “Well, first, we’re gonna need a few spare masks . . . “
“‘Honor and dignity’.†Weylan spat the words, out of anger in part and out of insobriety in another, significantly larger part. A number of tankards were scattered around the table, some of whom had at least most of their contents drained. “‘Honor and dignity’. That’s what this fucking Duskwight tells me. That’s what he has the balls to tell me. To treat everybody in the Shroud with it.â€
“A fucking grey?†The man in front of him sounded incredulous, but sympathetic. “A grey told you that. Remind me how many of ‘em treat us with that kind of respect?â€
“Right?!†Weylan spread his hands wide in shock, as if he couldn’t believe anybody could reasonably tell him such things, before taking another pull on his beer, then signalling Astidien for another.
The barkeep of the Spear and Arrow sighed, but prepared another tankard. Weylan’s new drinking partner was buying, and his pockets were proving quite deep. The place was small and out of the way, shadowed from cheap candles and a dark varnish on the wood in its construction, but well-frequented, and for a very particular and profitable reason: Here was where Wailers and Quivermen alike could come for some solace, a tavern where they wouldn’t be forced to rub shoulders with the liberal-minded adventurers at the Carline Canopy or drink beside Duskwight bandits and Keeper poachers at Buscarron’s. Here they would not have to suffer the polite lie that the Shroud, by being too weak to keep the outside out, was somehow stronger for it. Business was quiet, even if the customers were loud, as Weylan was, once a few pints were in him.
“I mean, bad enough he tells me this. Bad enough. But he tells me this after they’ve been threatening me with a diremite to the balls. Some honor! Some dignity! Like I was holding out on them, or, or fucking cheating them to cancel their precious leve.†He rolled his eyes and made an exaggerated circle with his neck to emphasize it, giving a passing not to Astidien as his drink was delivered. “I ask you, what does a leve pay? Two hundred gil, three-hundred?â€
“Thereabouts,†said his companion. He’d been engaging in sympathetic listening for the most part, having introduced himself to buy a pint for the last survivor of the Sixteenth’s patrol. Weylan had nearly run him off with a few choice words, but it was clear the man meant no respect, even if he was a bit odd. What sense was there in keeping his mask on even off-duty? He was a patriot, to be sure, but Weylan could never understand the spiritual types.
“Must have cost them twice as much just to go through all this. Well maybe,†he said, pausing to take a deep drink of his ale, a little spilling down the side of his tunic in a drunken dearth of grace, “Maybe they should have done their fucking jobs instead of standing around chatting and leaving me to cart off my mates’ bodies! What they were hired to do!â€
“That’s outsiders for you, isn’t it?†His partner’s voice was rough, a mixture of wear and age in tandem. Weylan gauged him to be in his fortieth cycle, thereabouts, when he could bother to focus. The grey streaks in the dark hair were the most tell-tale sign. “Lazy shits, all of them. Ul’dahni, ‘Kotes, greys, always looking for an easy mark.â€
“Yes, right! Exactly right.†In his outrage, Weylan found, he could forget the fear the helplessness of being overpowered and tortured - oh, they’d call it something else, but that’s what it was - to give them information they’d had no right to receive, all out of spite for not being paid and an insistence that he was somehow the villain for daring to be on the same patrol as dead men. “Why do the work on a leve when you’ve got a Wailer to do the lifting, and you can stand around talking about whether some bloody red bitch is a witch or a monster?â€
“I hear you. I absolutely hear you.†It was hard to see his companion’s expression with the mask on his face, though he was far from expressionless; his lips twitched in sympathy, his brow wrinkled, and the scars scattered along his cheeks scrunched up in smiles or tugged inwards in frowns at just the right moments. “At least tell me the Adder did something about all this, though. Complaint? Fines? Even a sternly-worded missive?’
If Weylan could, he would have crumpled his tankard in his fist. “Fucking worst part of it, er - sorry - “
“Hadrian.â€
“Right, right. Worst part of it, Hadrian. I’m the one gets sent back to the Bannock for retraining an’ reassignment. Haven’t heard a word about them, you know? Might as well have been the spirits for all the effort they put into hunting them down.†Privately, Weylan was glad of it. Meant nobody would look too closely into any missing records. The fear had lasted well beyond the act of torture, and their demands had been extensive. He didn’t think the Adders would be too interested in arrest records from the last decades of the Sixth Astral Era, but one never knew.
“Nophica’s tits, nothing?†Hadrian leaned back in his stool and placed his hand against his mask, wincing in frustration. “I think that’s the worst part of it, y’know, Wey? That’s the worst of it. Shroud’s in a shambles, spirits can’t just oust troublemakers like they could. And who should be stepping up?†He thumped his chest. “Us, that’s who.â€
“Damn right,†said Weylan, irritated by the shorthand but too caught up to correct it.
“Wailers, Godsbow, we need to be stronger. We have t’be! If the spirits can’t do the job, we need to be doing it for them. Ask me, shouldn’t be a single outsider even gets near the woods before they’re bristling with arrowpoints. Ul’dahn, Limsan, Ishgardian, take your pick. Not a damn one of them.â€
“Damn right!â€
“But what happens?†Hadrian made a show of displaying his fingers as horns up at the top of his single tankard of ale, still half-full, and spoke in the lower range of a falsetto. “‘Ah, we must work with all to protect the forest from further danger! Never mind the trouble they bring, invite them all in!’†Weylan was drunk enough to laugh. “Ask me,†Hadrian finished, dropping his hands, “Only place they ought to be allowed is Sylph territory. Maybe help them clear each other out, thin the ranks.â€
“It’s true,†said Weylan, his nod emphatic, the mess of dirty blond hair falling in front of his eyes.â€Absolutely true. Try telling that to the bosses, though. Naught to be done.â€
Here, Hadrian quirked his lips. “Well, not naught, I say. Just depends on how you tell them.†He glanced over Weylan’s shoulder. Astidien appeared to be busy with cleaning and taking inventory for the evening. He leaned forward. Weylan could see, through the haze of ale, a few chips in the mask; it looked like a very old one indeed.
“No, what you do is, you show them. An’ I bet you can help me with that, if you like. But if you don’t like, I’ll say nary a peep more.â€
It was a serious question, and one Weylan hadn’t expected in an evening of commiseration and general venting of the spleen. What he heard next if he asked, he supposed, would be something treasonous. But damned if he hadn’t already done that stealing records for the adventurers, for those fucking ‘Kotes and the gods-damned grey. What was one more?
His eyes narrowed as he thought of the people who’d responded to the leve in the first place. The laughing Seeker with her flirtations and her swaying hips. The foul-mouthed Blade overstepping his bounds. And Keepers. All the damned Keepers in all the damned woods. If he was going to break the law, then why do it for their sake, when they would do naught for him?
“Go and tell me,†he said, leaning forward. “And keep it quick.â€
Hadrian grinned. “Well, first, we’re gonna need a few spare masks . . . “
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Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine