Thread Closed
A Series of Short Conversations In and Around Stillglade Fane
“No.†Guerrique snorted and turned away from his cell door’s window.. It was a surprise, to him, that he would have been brought out of repose for this. It was a surprise that he had been brought out of repose at all, really. The Fane believed it better to keep prisoners resting and docile save for when meals and the privy were required. In the . . . it had to be sennights now, didn’t it? In that length of time, he could remember but two moments when he had been brought out of slumber for other purposes: first when the Hearer had come to offer Ursuline a bit of surcease, and second when members of the Wailers had come calling.
That had not been so pleasant a conversation at all. They hadn’t laid hands, and all the better for them, but it had been of a certain tone, one that suggested only a very slim usefulness kept him away from the hangman’s noose or the headsman’s block or whatever it was the citydwellers were using to cut off heads these days. And always the same question, asked with the same patiently frustrated tone, their armor so white compared to the usual Wailer garb he hadn’t seen they’d been a bit blinding in the dim light of the cell. When he had left the prison, did a Padjal come with him? He didn’t know. And if so, where was he? And again, he didn’t know.
And now there was a Padjal in front of him, short enough that Guerrique could barely see the horns peeking through the cell window, and here he was offering something he couldn’t have been. The Duskwight had been through his share of false promises by now, and he knew another when he heard it.
On the other end of the door, the Padjal sighed. “I apologize, but this is no mere jest, ser,†he said, “And I would not come were the circumstances not dire. If you do not take this opportunity, then your life is assuredly forfeit.â€
“You’re a neat speaker, an’ that’s plain enough,†said Guerrique. “But no. Fane an’ the masks doing at odds? Doesn’t make sense.â€
“They are not at odds, I promise you that,†continued the Padjal. “But I am at odds with both. You have met my comrade. She eased the pain of your lover, did she not? We would see you both released, and not in the manner the Fane would prefer. Please. Take this chance.â€
With his back turned, Guerrique could make his hesitation more plan, his expression uncertain. “You think they’ll do for ‘er? Looking like she is?â€
“I do. They will not suffer the corruption within you overlong. Once their tolerance has reached a limit - “ He could hear the Padjal’s throat as he swallowed. Exaggerated, perhaps, but sounds could carry far down here. “But she and I - we may have a way to cleanse you.â€
A click on the bars sounded behind Guerrique, and he turned his shoulder to see a small hand clasping the bars in his window. There was something perverse, he’d always thought, about the spirits making their servants out of children.
He scowled, and wrinkled his nose. “You get her first. You bring her here, and we’ll go on our way.â€
“Ser, I cannot allow you to just leave unfettered - “
The Duskwight held up a hand. “Snakemolt, if you please. We’ll hold up there. If you’re good to your word, it’ll be you and the Hearer come calling - no later than a sennight from today. If not, y’won’t see us. Just give us a means to leave, and we’ll creep on out.â€
The Padjal on the other side of the door said nothing. Then, slowly, the door in front of him was unlatched and creaked open. Guerrique hastened to slam it shut.
“No! You get her first, you understand? You fetch her and bring her, and we’ll go separate - “
This close to the window, he could see through it, and the forestchild was nowhere to be seen. He frowned.
“Terrible at directions,†he mumbled, opening the door and glancing around the hallways of the Fane. “Think he’d never broken out’ve prison before.â€
---
Another sun, and Hamond Wolfedge would be free.
He had not planned for the possibility of recapture, but he had not anticipated the presence of many things. The eastern watchtower, the metallic fort in his path, the interference of adventurers, so on, so on. Nothing but obstacles since his first escape. When he was laid low, he was sure the demon’s game had ended, that he would awake in Toto-Rak in some newly-concocted hell.
To find himself in the Fane was an unexpected outcome. Unexpected, but not unwelcome. Their security was firm enough, and to be in the heart of Gridanian governance had given him ample opportunity to take what notes he could from the chatter of guards and the occasional mumblings of Conjurers passing by. If this world was a trick of the demon, then it had made it real, more real than any of his illusions of time past. If it was not, then the Young King would find what secrets he could glean from the halls of power to be very useful indeed.
He set about tensing his wrists in his shackles. The locals preferred to keep their victims in slumber (a far cry from their last gaol, in his view), but after reports of his escape from Quarrymill, and his capture at the tower, he had been bound and manacled twice over. The less he could move, in their view when they required him to be awake, he supposed, the better.
It had been highly effective. He had not been able to manipulate his chakra and muscles alike but for brief moments during feeding, delaying his efforts considerably. Another sun’s worth of meals, and the chains binding him would have been strained, worn thin enough to break.
Their spells of slumber, too, were not so powerful as they would have been on lesser minds and bodies; to a Fist of Rhalgr, at least, they were a nuisance, a state of somnolence in which he was dimly aware, but unable to move, to strain. He could sense his surroundings, though, and he could hear the click of footsteps down the hall, the clatter of a key in a lock, and the creak of his door opening.
And when the Young King entered the room, he was grateful that he was in this state, for fear that he would weep at the sight of him. Clad in the robes of the childseers that controlled Gridania, he raised a staff of wood and ivory high and, with but a word, the sleep that always threatened to overtake Hamond was gone.
In an instant he was up on his feet; in the next, his shackles strained and shattered as he pulled them apart, chains clattering to the floor of his cell in pieces. In the third, he was down on one knee in front of the Young King. “Liege,†he whispered, breathless, reverent. “I know not how you have come, or if this is the demon’s trick again - but no, it cannot be.†Hamond shook his head. The demon had sent him glimpses in the past, to be sure - visions of Theodoric. It was surreal, to be sure, that he was here. But too different from the workings of Neruhm to be anything but real.
“Er.†Hamond glanced up. In his forcefulness, he seemed to have caught the boy tongue-tied. “Right.†He cleared his throat. “I have secured your release, my, er . . . loyal . . . subject? If you would follow me, please. But be wary. The guards abound.â€
“Yes, liege!†He sprang to his feet, the impact from his legs creating a rumble in the wood underneath them.
“. . . Wary and quiet, please.â€
---
“This’s gettin’ us nowhere’s, Thya.†One shadow spoke around a mouthful of chestnuts, the crunching sound making every word a crackle.
“You hush it, Pah. They ain’t seen us all sun, an’ this is the last batch. Boss’s gonna want to know who’ve them Padjal got what kinda guards, right?â€
“‘S right, and most’ve ‘em got guards now. Lots an’ lots. We had our shot, n’ we got paid, so let’s take that an’ leg south.â€
“Just another couple bells, is all. Don’t even need to shoot or nothin’, just stay -hid-.†An extremely perceptive onlooker might hear the whispering, but see little more than a pair of potentially argumentative bushes. And so close to Nophica’s Altar, who would find it odd to hear a little bit of unexplained whispering in the air?
“Don’t like this city, y’know. ‘S all wrong from what it used t’be.â€
“Got that right. Gettin’ all their birds sick, lettin’ in all these ‘venturers, an’ half the masks have new suits. T’ain’t right at all.â€
“Gil’s still good though, least the boss’s is good. We get another hunt, get ‘em good, then we cut clean and go southwise. Ul’dah’s nice ‘cept for the Keepers.â€
“Oh, we’ll get ‘em good. You seen that shot I made, yeah? Never heard it comin’, the kid did.â€
“‘Course he never heard it, Thya, nobody did, tha’s the point.â€
“Well, yeah, yeah, but even so, takin’ into account all them factors, wind an’ such, even if he coulda, he wouldn’t’a.â€
“Maybe so, maybe s - oop, looklooklook!â€
The bushes waited until an appropriate breeze had passed through in order to rustle. “Right there, you see? The little’n.â€
In the near but not-too near distance, a view of the Fane allowed the two the sight of a Padjal, his robe pulled over his head to obscure his face, exiting the cave entrance that led to the Conjurer’s Guild. Behind him was a hulk of a man, clad in a ragged robe too short to cover powerfully built legs, but with a hood heavy enough to keep him likewise concealed.
“Why’s he hidin’ his face, y’reckon?â€
“Maybe he’s incognitoing.â€
“Tha’s not a verb, Pah.â€
“Oh, you hush. Look at that fellow, though, big as an’ ‘ouse. And look, look - “
The pair had not gotten more than a few yalms out of the entrance when the shadows could see the figures of a troupe of Wailers approaching.
“Why’s they all in white?â€
“That’s Serpents, Thya. Boss said about ‘em, you recall? Elites f’r the elite, you know. Half-a-dozen I’d say†The shadow sighed. “Pass me them chestnuts ‘fore they turn black. That many guards? This’n’s a bust.â€
“Sure, sure - wait. Wait, Pah, look.†She pointed. “They s’posed to raise spears? like that?â€
“Nah. Not ‘sposed to surround ‘em, either.†From their point of view, they could no longer see the Padjal, or, for that matter, his companion - the height of the Elezen obscured, and the white of their armor distracted.
“Don’t see ‘em do that often to one’a them. Sure ‘s not a ritual? Look, ‘e’s raisin’ his staff, see?â€
Thya felt a hand on her back before she was shoved down into a bush. Above them, a bright and blinding light flared out over the Fane, followed by the rapid passing of two pairs of feet, one light, one heavy.
“Nophica’s arse, Pah, wha’d you do that for?!†said Thya, raising her head from the dirt.
“It’s tits, Thya, and nasty magic. Worst kind. An’ look.â€
The pair chanced peeking their heads outside of the bushes. In the distance, bodies clad in white armor lay collapsed on the ground. Civilians and Conjurers alike had not yet passed from shock to panic.
“Think they’re dead?â€
“Nah. Padjal? Just sleepin’. But he’s runnin’ from guards, not goin’ with ‘em. You follow?â€
“. . . Means he’s not got any.â€
“Mmhm. Keep eyes on ‘im. I’ll go tell the boss.â€
---
“Twenty gil?! Last sennight it was only ten!â€
Helena did her best to maintain a bright and businesslike smile in the face of customer outrage. Fortunately, it was only mild exasperation in this case, a young woman with a wrinkled duneapple she supposed was a relation. This was not Ul’dah, she had to remind herself, and the prospect of a wildly fluctuating price was much more of an outrage. Not for the first time, she found herself wishing she’d cultivated a customer base of adventurers. They would put up with whatever insane spikes might be thrown at them with a smile. “I’m afraid that’s so, miss. Horse oil’s been very popular with a number of Wailer Spears of late. They’ve placed a number of orders in advance. Would you like to do the same? If you pre-order five vials now, I’ll be happy to throw in this . . . “
She glanced down at the contents of her stall. Pelderain Dornier had slipped her a number of what he called “collector’s edition vials.†As far as she could see they weren’t much different from the usual kind, save for having had the stopper painted gold.
“Actually, forget what I’d offer extra, it’s not worth it. Still cheaper to place an order in advance these days. Would you prefer that?â€
“Ah, yes, yes, I’d prefer that very much.†The woman brushed aside a lock of dusty blonde hair. “I’m sorry, I think I might have lost my temper. It’s just we have a family anniversary coming up, and gran’s mind isn’t as sharp as it might have been last cycle. Thought maybe the horse oil would’ve gotten her a bit of wits back.â€
Helena gave the woman’s gran a closer look. A duneapple, to be sure, and her eyes distant, lost in whatever else might have been more interesting than the Stalls. Most things, to be sure. Her hand lowered down to underneath the counter, where she kept her own supply of vials. A week’s worth, usually taken from each of Pelderain’s offerings. If he had a problem with the loss of coin, he never said.
Surely, she could stand a day without. Sure she could.
She dropped her hand, and withdrew her ledger instead. “Very well then. You needed just the one, correct? Simple enough to offer a ten-gil price for that in the next shipment.â€
“Thank you,†said the customer, with drawing her coinpurse. “Thank you very much, mi - “ She stumbled forward as a pair of men brushed past her in the Stalls, both cowled and robed. Helena leaned forward to catch her shoulders before she slammed into the front of the stall and rattled the merchandise.
“Are you quite all right, miss?â€
“I - yes, I think so. Rude of them, wasn’t it?†The woman pushed herself away and adjust a short, threadbare tunic. “But - yes, here. Ten gil. For Linette Fahn.â€
“Done,†said Helena, making a note in her ledger. “And done. Stop by same day next sennight and I’ll have it ready.â€
“Obliged to you, truly.†Linette bowed her head and turned to take the older woman’s hand. “Come on now - gran? Gran?â€
She had turned to stare down the path of the Stalls, her eyes open, unblinking, as she followed the pair of robes until they were out of sight. Â
“No.†Guerrique snorted and turned away from his cell door’s window.. It was a surprise, to him, that he would have been brought out of repose for this. It was a surprise that he had been brought out of repose at all, really. The Fane believed it better to keep prisoners resting and docile save for when meals and the privy were required. In the . . . it had to be sennights now, didn’t it? In that length of time, he could remember but two moments when he had been brought out of slumber for other purposes: first when the Hearer had come to offer Ursuline a bit of surcease, and second when members of the Wailers had come calling.
That had not been so pleasant a conversation at all. They hadn’t laid hands, and all the better for them, but it had been of a certain tone, one that suggested only a very slim usefulness kept him away from the hangman’s noose or the headsman’s block or whatever it was the citydwellers were using to cut off heads these days. And always the same question, asked with the same patiently frustrated tone, their armor so white compared to the usual Wailer garb he hadn’t seen they’d been a bit blinding in the dim light of the cell. When he had left the prison, did a Padjal come with him? He didn’t know. And if so, where was he? And again, he didn’t know.
And now there was a Padjal in front of him, short enough that Guerrique could barely see the horns peeking through the cell window, and here he was offering something he couldn’t have been. The Duskwight had been through his share of false promises by now, and he knew another when he heard it.
On the other end of the door, the Padjal sighed. “I apologize, but this is no mere jest, ser,†he said, “And I would not come were the circumstances not dire. If you do not take this opportunity, then your life is assuredly forfeit.â€
“You’re a neat speaker, an’ that’s plain enough,†said Guerrique. “But no. Fane an’ the masks doing at odds? Doesn’t make sense.â€
“They are not at odds, I promise you that,†continued the Padjal. “But I am at odds with both. You have met my comrade. She eased the pain of your lover, did she not? We would see you both released, and not in the manner the Fane would prefer. Please. Take this chance.â€
With his back turned, Guerrique could make his hesitation more plan, his expression uncertain. “You think they’ll do for ‘er? Looking like she is?â€
“I do. They will not suffer the corruption within you overlong. Once their tolerance has reached a limit - “ He could hear the Padjal’s throat as he swallowed. Exaggerated, perhaps, but sounds could carry far down here. “But she and I - we may have a way to cleanse you.â€
A click on the bars sounded behind Guerrique, and he turned his shoulder to see a small hand clasping the bars in his window. There was something perverse, he’d always thought, about the spirits making their servants out of children.
He scowled, and wrinkled his nose. “You get her first. You bring her here, and we’ll go on our way.â€
“Ser, I cannot allow you to just leave unfettered - “
The Duskwight held up a hand. “Snakemolt, if you please. We’ll hold up there. If you’re good to your word, it’ll be you and the Hearer come calling - no later than a sennight from today. If not, y’won’t see us. Just give us a means to leave, and we’ll creep on out.â€
The Padjal on the other side of the door said nothing. Then, slowly, the door in front of him was unlatched and creaked open. Guerrique hastened to slam it shut.
“No! You get her first, you understand? You fetch her and bring her, and we’ll go separate - “
This close to the window, he could see through it, and the forestchild was nowhere to be seen. He frowned.
“Terrible at directions,†he mumbled, opening the door and glancing around the hallways of the Fane. “Think he’d never broken out’ve prison before.â€
---
Another sun, and Hamond Wolfedge would be free.
He had not planned for the possibility of recapture, but he had not anticipated the presence of many things. The eastern watchtower, the metallic fort in his path, the interference of adventurers, so on, so on. Nothing but obstacles since his first escape. When he was laid low, he was sure the demon’s game had ended, that he would awake in Toto-Rak in some newly-concocted hell.
To find himself in the Fane was an unexpected outcome. Unexpected, but not unwelcome. Their security was firm enough, and to be in the heart of Gridanian governance had given him ample opportunity to take what notes he could from the chatter of guards and the occasional mumblings of Conjurers passing by. If this world was a trick of the demon, then it had made it real, more real than any of his illusions of time past. If it was not, then the Young King would find what secrets he could glean from the halls of power to be very useful indeed.
He set about tensing his wrists in his shackles. The locals preferred to keep their victims in slumber (a far cry from their last gaol, in his view), but after reports of his escape from Quarrymill, and his capture at the tower, he had been bound and manacled twice over. The less he could move, in their view when they required him to be awake, he supposed, the better.
It had been highly effective. He had not been able to manipulate his chakra and muscles alike but for brief moments during feeding, delaying his efforts considerably. Another sun’s worth of meals, and the chains binding him would have been strained, worn thin enough to break.
Their spells of slumber, too, were not so powerful as they would have been on lesser minds and bodies; to a Fist of Rhalgr, at least, they were a nuisance, a state of somnolence in which he was dimly aware, but unable to move, to strain. He could sense his surroundings, though, and he could hear the click of footsteps down the hall, the clatter of a key in a lock, and the creak of his door opening.
And when the Young King entered the room, he was grateful that he was in this state, for fear that he would weep at the sight of him. Clad in the robes of the childseers that controlled Gridania, he raised a staff of wood and ivory high and, with but a word, the sleep that always threatened to overtake Hamond was gone.
In an instant he was up on his feet; in the next, his shackles strained and shattered as he pulled them apart, chains clattering to the floor of his cell in pieces. In the third, he was down on one knee in front of the Young King. “Liege,†he whispered, breathless, reverent. “I know not how you have come, or if this is the demon’s trick again - but no, it cannot be.†Hamond shook his head. The demon had sent him glimpses in the past, to be sure - visions of Theodoric. It was surreal, to be sure, that he was here. But too different from the workings of Neruhm to be anything but real.
“Er.†Hamond glanced up. In his forcefulness, he seemed to have caught the boy tongue-tied. “Right.†He cleared his throat. “I have secured your release, my, er . . . loyal . . . subject? If you would follow me, please. But be wary. The guards abound.â€
“Yes, liege!†He sprang to his feet, the impact from his legs creating a rumble in the wood underneath them.
“. . . Wary and quiet, please.â€
---
“This’s gettin’ us nowhere’s, Thya.†One shadow spoke around a mouthful of chestnuts, the crunching sound making every word a crackle.
“You hush it, Pah. They ain’t seen us all sun, an’ this is the last batch. Boss’s gonna want to know who’ve them Padjal got what kinda guards, right?â€
“‘S right, and most’ve ‘em got guards now. Lots an’ lots. We had our shot, n’ we got paid, so let’s take that an’ leg south.â€
“Just another couple bells, is all. Don’t even need to shoot or nothin’, just stay -hid-.†An extremely perceptive onlooker might hear the whispering, but see little more than a pair of potentially argumentative bushes. And so close to Nophica’s Altar, who would find it odd to hear a little bit of unexplained whispering in the air?
“Don’t like this city, y’know. ‘S all wrong from what it used t’be.â€
“Got that right. Gettin’ all their birds sick, lettin’ in all these ‘venturers, an’ half the masks have new suits. T’ain’t right at all.â€
“Gil’s still good though, least the boss’s is good. We get another hunt, get ‘em good, then we cut clean and go southwise. Ul’dah’s nice ‘cept for the Keepers.â€
“Oh, we’ll get ‘em good. You seen that shot I made, yeah? Never heard it comin’, the kid did.â€
“‘Course he never heard it, Thya, nobody did, tha’s the point.â€
“Well, yeah, yeah, but even so, takin’ into account all them factors, wind an’ such, even if he coulda, he wouldn’t’a.â€
“Maybe so, maybe s - oop, looklooklook!â€
The bushes waited until an appropriate breeze had passed through in order to rustle. “Right there, you see? The little’n.â€
In the near but not-too near distance, a view of the Fane allowed the two the sight of a Padjal, his robe pulled over his head to obscure his face, exiting the cave entrance that led to the Conjurer’s Guild. Behind him was a hulk of a man, clad in a ragged robe too short to cover powerfully built legs, but with a hood heavy enough to keep him likewise concealed.
“Why’s he hidin’ his face, y’reckon?â€
“Maybe he’s incognitoing.â€
“Tha’s not a verb, Pah.â€
“Oh, you hush. Look at that fellow, though, big as an’ ‘ouse. And look, look - “
The pair had not gotten more than a few yalms out of the entrance when the shadows could see the figures of a troupe of Wailers approaching.
“Why’s they all in white?â€
“That’s Serpents, Thya. Boss said about ‘em, you recall? Elites f’r the elite, you know. Half-a-dozen I’d say†The shadow sighed. “Pass me them chestnuts ‘fore they turn black. That many guards? This’n’s a bust.â€
“Sure, sure - wait. Wait, Pah, look.†She pointed. “They s’posed to raise spears? like that?â€
“Nah. Not ‘sposed to surround ‘em, either.†From their point of view, they could no longer see the Padjal, or, for that matter, his companion - the height of the Elezen obscured, and the white of their armor distracted.
“Don’t see ‘em do that often to one’a them. Sure ‘s not a ritual? Look, ‘e’s raisin’ his staff, see?â€
Thya felt a hand on her back before she was shoved down into a bush. Above them, a bright and blinding light flared out over the Fane, followed by the rapid passing of two pairs of feet, one light, one heavy.
“Nophica’s arse, Pah, wha’d you do that for?!†said Thya, raising her head from the dirt.
“It’s tits, Thya, and nasty magic. Worst kind. An’ look.â€
The pair chanced peeking their heads outside of the bushes. In the distance, bodies clad in white armor lay collapsed on the ground. Civilians and Conjurers alike had not yet passed from shock to panic.
“Think they’re dead?â€
“Nah. Padjal? Just sleepin’. But he’s runnin’ from guards, not goin’ with ‘em. You follow?â€
“. . . Means he’s not got any.â€
“Mmhm. Keep eyes on ‘im. I’ll go tell the boss.â€
---
“Twenty gil?! Last sennight it was only ten!â€
Helena did her best to maintain a bright and businesslike smile in the face of customer outrage. Fortunately, it was only mild exasperation in this case, a young woman with a wrinkled duneapple she supposed was a relation. This was not Ul’dah, she had to remind herself, and the prospect of a wildly fluctuating price was much more of an outrage. Not for the first time, she found herself wishing she’d cultivated a customer base of adventurers. They would put up with whatever insane spikes might be thrown at them with a smile. “I’m afraid that’s so, miss. Horse oil’s been very popular with a number of Wailer Spears of late. They’ve placed a number of orders in advance. Would you like to do the same? If you pre-order five vials now, I’ll be happy to throw in this . . . “
She glanced down at the contents of her stall. Pelderain Dornier had slipped her a number of what he called “collector’s edition vials.†As far as she could see they weren’t much different from the usual kind, save for having had the stopper painted gold.
“Actually, forget what I’d offer extra, it’s not worth it. Still cheaper to place an order in advance these days. Would you prefer that?â€
“Ah, yes, yes, I’d prefer that very much.†The woman brushed aside a lock of dusty blonde hair. “I’m sorry, I think I might have lost my temper. It’s just we have a family anniversary coming up, and gran’s mind isn’t as sharp as it might have been last cycle. Thought maybe the horse oil would’ve gotten her a bit of wits back.â€
Helena gave the woman’s gran a closer look. A duneapple, to be sure, and her eyes distant, lost in whatever else might have been more interesting than the Stalls. Most things, to be sure. Her hand lowered down to underneath the counter, where she kept her own supply of vials. A week’s worth, usually taken from each of Pelderain’s offerings. If he had a problem with the loss of coin, he never said.
Surely, she could stand a day without. Sure she could.
She dropped her hand, and withdrew her ledger instead. “Very well then. You needed just the one, correct? Simple enough to offer a ten-gil price for that in the next shipment.â€
“Thank you,†said the customer, with drawing her coinpurse. “Thank you very much, mi - “ She stumbled forward as a pair of men brushed past her in the Stalls, both cowled and robed. Helena leaned forward to catch her shoulders before she slammed into the front of the stall and rattled the merchandise.
“Are you quite all right, miss?â€
“I - yes, I think so. Rude of them, wasn’t it?†The woman pushed herself away and adjust a short, threadbare tunic. “But - yes, here. Ten gil. For Linette Fahn.â€
“Done,†said Helena, making a note in her ledger. “And done. Stop by same day next sennight and I’ll have it ready.â€
“Obliged to you, truly.†Linette bowed her head and turned to take the older woman’s hand. “Come on now - gran? Gran?â€
She had turned to stare down the path of the Stalls, her eyes open, unblinking, as she followed the pair of robes until they were out of sight. Â
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Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine