D&D 5E Hold Back The Night [IC]

Jago Presents

Starring
@tglassy as Teryn Mallus, The Disgraced Scholar Seeking Vengeance
@Quickleaf as Fitz Augertorque, The Golem Artisan with a Guilty Heart
@Shayuri as Grandfather, The Reincarnated Ancient Child
@Foxbytes as Rána, The Elven Healer who Hears The Missing Gods
@Fenris as Derngar, The Last of The Forsaken, Bringer of Light
@Queenie as Lorelei, The Bearer of Hope Through Song


I have seen This City a thousand times through the glass twenty stories high and I have watched This City burn.

After The Great End, this was the only place left, the only place for weeks’ worth of travel in every direction that still retained a bit of green and water that would not kill. We came from all over: Man, Elf, Dwarf. Gnome. Halfling. More, from all across a world that The Gods seemed to have forsaken. We struggled, and we starved, and we died.

Until They came. The Magi, and their perfect Tower of dark crystal. Their command of the arcane was immeasurable, and with our own abilities fading quickly we had no choice but to turn to these benevolent angels for help. They raised Walls to protect us, created Golems to care for us. We grew, expanding beyond our borders until we made new borders, and we hailed The Magi as saviors. They had made a perfect City. A shining City. A sterile City filled with their constructed servants and their subtle words of control.

We were weak and feared that this wonderful gift might be taken away if we spoke against it. We kept quiet. We lived our lives in the shadow of The Tower and accepted it as the new Sun, until flame and fury brought it raining down upon our heads. All of our silent fears came true overnight: The City was constricted under a magical vise, her Golems turning from our helpful automatons to the very unfeeling face of oppression. New faces appeared in our City, creatures and men that submitted to the will of The Magi easily and so were deemed better than we, the ungrateful who brought down a Tower only to see more and more materialize from parts unknown into our City. Their City.

We tried again to resist, again to fight, the injustice of it becoming unbearable as parents were stolen from children and children were found dead on the streets from starvation. A mighty few rose up: Heroes, we called them. Heroes of Man, of Elf, Dwarf, and all races. They fought bravely, and they died bravely, but they were forsaken by the ones they meant to save. When they died, they died in vain: The City, in all of its cowardice and fear, watched its last hope be slaughtered rather than stand beside them and fight back.

So here we are. We work our jobs. We hold our families at night. We no longer pray, for our Gods have abandoned us long ago. We will never have another hero, for we never tried to stand for ourselves. Whatever Light there once was in This City has been covered in gravedirt; our last hope is now our coffin.

We Are The Dead.
We Are The Dead.
We Are The Dead.



The Discussion Thread
The Cast List
A Guide to Common Terms


Like a luminescent relic, the sign flickered and flashed in its painfully-bright neon glow. It was a relic, from a time past when magic flowed freely and readily to the masses, bringing with it safety and security. Now, there was still security but not a soul would dare think they were safe. They would say it, of course: they had to say it, but their thoughts.
They could always preserve their thoughts, or so they told themselves.

The Velvet Rose. The exterior of the two-story building had certainly seen better days, but there was a certain charm that remained in the faded, red paint that flaked off of her exterior like dandruff, the street in front of her awash in color from the enchanted sign she was allowed to keep above her door. A minor bit of illusion magic, barely worth an Ordinator’s time to fill the paperwork needed to bring it down. Besides, this house of ill-repute managed to keep the denizens of this part of Sector Five reasonably manageable. So long as they could drown their sorrows in drink, company, and whatever else The Rose provided, they were quiet. Complacent. If they were complacent, the Legate in The Tower was happy, and so long as The Legate was happy, nothing too terrible would befall The Rose.

Not like yesterday. Yesterday, the Owner of the establishment, the kindly Half-Orc Rashimi, had been forced to throw a man out after he had gotten too deep into his cups and began berating her with some rather unsavory language. Normally, she could tolerate this: not many had love for Half-Orcs considering their full-blooded parents served The Magi as loyal oppressors and terror units, and so Rashimi had come to understand that if she needed to be the emotional bunching bag for these people so they didn’t take it out on her girls and boys, then so be it. However, this latest “resistance fighter” had gone from criticizing Rashimi for being a “Tusk-faced whore who begged for the Ordinator’s whip” (amongst other things) to decrying the villainies of The Orcs.
And then The Ordinators.

Unwilling to draw attention to her business, Rashimi had no choice but to eject the man and bar him from coming back in. From the local talk around the bar, apparently he had received a visit from Ordinator Absalom and his Golems this morning. Those who knew him said that his child had been taken away two days ago, sent for “Reeducation” outside of Sector Five. Must have snapped, one offered. Such a shame, another agreed. Yet, there was not a one among them who blamed the offender: they were not sure that they would not have done the exact same thing in his shoes.

It was a hot, dry, early evening, and The Rose was preparing for the rush that normally came with it. Workers finally getting home, men and women alike needing a place to relax and lose themselves. However, not all who came to this house of whisky and women did so for either drink or company: The Rose was a wonderful place to meet up, to trade information, and get a better feel for what was happening within The City. With how the enchanted pillars outside blared propaganda about surpluses while encouraging rationing, sometimes idle chatter was the only way to find the truth.

So long as The Ordinators stayed away, which seemed like a likely case tonight: they had a prisoner to deal with, after all.

~The sun had not set, but it was already well after dark. Nighttime arrived early and lingered on...and on...in the shadows of the towers. Rána could scarecely recall catching any glimpses of the sun most weeks. She never caught sight of the moon at all.

But she had faith it was still there, traversing its path over a star-speckled field. Jezanna had whispered her reassurance of this to the cleric. Not that any of the other Totemic Elves would listen when Rána tried to pass the goddess's words along.

That was forbidden. The mines echoed secrets for miles. Randír wouldn't have let that stop him. Her jaw stiffened a bit as she walked the near-empty streets. Few ventured outside after it had grown dark, anymore, but it wasn't brigands and thieves they feared. Those days had been better, not that anyone would have dared admit to that, either.

She pulled open the door, the wooden handle blackened and polished smooth by the oils of thousands of hands and entered The Velvet Rose. Despite torch sconces and oil lamps enough to break the City's fire code ten times over, the flickering light fought a futile battle against the encroaching darkness. Light was a feeble and forgotten thing no matter how hot the day, it seemed.

A lavender hand pushed through silver tresses, darkened by coal dust and the dampness of sweat. Rána put hard days of unpaid labor into the mines herself, but she was allowed to clock out just a little earlier than the rest, sometimes, to make it to her second job. One that was far more difficult in many ways, far riskier, but much preferred to the one the City assigned her.

She greeted Rashimi over the raucous of entertainers and drunkards alike, ready to receive her list of patients for the day. They sat down at the bar so that the half-orc could debrief her. Rána never knew what to expect. Maladies could vary from common colds to minor injuries, or even to severed limbs from the dangerous factory work that Sector 5 often put out; also the regular cuts and lost teeth from bar fights, or the usual physical exams to make sure the Rose's ladies and their patrons remained healthy before, during, and after their "consults."

Some nights, youngkins were brought in with their big eyes covered by the palms of worried parents who knew of Rána's knowledge with common fevers and infections. City-sanctioned clinics existed certainly, but were avoided at all costs...stories of children being brought in for sore throats only to never be seen leaving again were prevalent, yet, somehow never spoken of aloud. Rashimi was gracious to allow Rána a clean room to work in even for those patients too young to be patrons of the Rose. Privacy was needed for exams and comfort of those she treated, but it was for Rána's own safety, as well.

Many of her healing methods were...also...forbidden.

...The worst patients were the ones that had been exposed to the Blight, the disease that had ruined their world. The symptoms followed no definitive pattern that Rána could discern, but they seemed to universally burn from the inside out, appearing as lesions on the skin and abscesses on internal organs. Sometimes, Rána's spellwork could save them. Too often though, death was inevitable, and she could only ease their pain long enough to say goodbye. No race seemed immune, except for maybe tieflings. But she hadn't seen enough of them around to know for sure. They were not only rare in number, but they just didn't seem to get sick. This didn't help the suspicions and resentment other races held for them, but with the weirdness and destructive power of the Blight, Rána was certain tieflings were just as in the dark and victimized as any race on this planet was.

She was grateful tonight's list was a short one, most of them names familiar to her as regular exams for a few of the girls that worked for Rashimi. It wasn't entirely for selfless reasons that Rána did not want to worry about trauma patients tonight. On slow nights like these, Rána had more freedom to listen in on conversations and news from outside of Sector 5. Information that she prays will lead her to finding Randír, to a trail that had not yet grown cold... ~

Teryn Mallus, once an Academ in the library, head researcher and solver of problems, was not drunk. And like all problems he had been tasked to solve, he pursued the solution to this one vigorously.

He sat at the bar to the Velvet Rose, nursing a whiskey. It was only his third. Damn human bodies, getting used to whatever was put in it. He'd found his tolerance for alcohol had grown in the last few months. Now it took damn near a half a bottle before he started to feel it. Expensive, but he had the money. His previous work at the college, and a few wise investments, meant he at least had money for drink. If not much else.

But he was already on nearly a bottle a night. He'd have to either slow up or start coming every other night if he wanted to continue this.

To everyone watching, he was a drunk sitting in his usual place, head down, lost in his worries until the drink took him.

The reality was that, besides his momentary considerations of his body becoming more efficient in processing alcohol, his mind was going so fast it obscured his other senses, until he was almost oblivious of everyone else in the bar. He was drinking mostly mindlessly, rolling his real problems over in his head.

The book he'd taken from the Magi's Library. He could read their writing, but the subject matter was complicated, more complicated than learning a new language or advanced mathematics, both of which he had done early in his career. No, this book was something infinitey more useful.

It was one of the Magi's spare spell books. It was in a section of the Library that Teryn knew the Magi rarely visited, and did not catalog. He had often, in his years there, speculated that he could just walk off with one of the books and not get caught. He'd been right. So far.

But he hadn't cracked it. Not yet. So he rolled the information in his mind, trying to see what he had done wrong, why the spells had not worked. Diagrams and figures flashed in front of his face, twisting and turning, becoming more, and yet less, clear as he drank. The drink helped him relax his brain, which helped him make new connections. Not that that was why he drank, but it was a nice side effect.

[SECTION]Most of the Magi estates had a gnome door, at least that's what it was called, a backdoor sized for their putrid diminutive servants. Though the Rose lacked such a demeaning feature, it did not change Fitz Augertorque's behavior. He skulked at the edges, his furry grey brows teasing out the interstitial spaces, the blindspots, the spaces between. That was where Fitz lived. Greedy eyes and a churning contemptuous belly studied the snifters of alcohol and cigars laid across the tables whose head Fitz barely even crested at 3'4", the last few inches of which surely were his eartips or wisp of frayed graying hair. He listened alertly, for gnomes like rabbits survived on their tiptoes, and for any signs of informants he was supposed to meet at Rashimi's establishment.

A small bundle of rust-colored shop rags was under one of the gnome's arms, a music box he intended to gift to Lorelei. Beady little eyes darted from left to right under his spectacles, sidestepping a serving girl tottering with too many plates, nimbly scurrying through the legs of an off-duty stonemason. All the while, Fitz muttered to himself. However, it wasn't until he eyed Teryn at the bar that the gnome's mutterings became audible. "Sodding hot night. Sodding reeducation. Sodding mathematics of business..." he grumbles discontentedly, passing from Teryn's right to left, adjusting a stool leg, which he has to scramble up, rolling himself like a rolly-polly into the seat at last. Slumping down, his eyes scan the counter before carefully setting his rag-covered bundle in the most unobtrusive place. "Inspector," he says stiffly, to make it clear that he recognizes Teryn from their time working The Case of the Berserk Golem together. It was far from a formal title, but the gnome insisted on using it for Teryn in a decidedly ambivalent way. Was it a term of respect? Friendly teasing? Withering mockery? It was never clear with Fitz, perhaps a bit of all three.[/SECTION]

Teryn's eyes rolled. Of course he recognized the name. Oh sure, the gnome was good at what he did, but he could be a pain to deal with.

"Fitz," he said.

Lorelei padded around her room, her pink floral silk robe open and barely clinging to her curvy body as she moved mindlessly around preparing for her evening. She could hear the din of the crowd growing downstairs as she applied her exotic makeup and fixed her long auburn hair into piles of curls upon her head.


Absalom already had his prey for the evening so the Rose would have more customers than usual, at least that was the normal routine under these circumstances. While it personally gave her a reprieve, she never preferred for anyone else to bare the brunt of his ire. This vexed her and was on her mind, causing her to be distracted in her preparations.


She looked around her large room, carefully arranged just so, draped in colorful fabrics to hide anything unseemly, unusual shiny and glittery objects lined her shelves, art hung on the walls, exotic lanterns hung from the ceiling. Her bed had a frame with four posters, sheer panels hung from each, giving an ethereal quality from the place she spent a good portion of her time. There were silk sheets on the mattress, even if they did have multiple wear spots mended and mended again, and there were stacks of fluffy pillows layered on top. It was a comfortable place to lay her head, no doubt.


All of what she had was gifts given by patrons, some were payment for her services, some were just gifts of gratitude from repeat customers. She’d even have some customers from other more “affluent” Sectors of the City (if you could call them that) come visit her but Absalom seemed to be putting a stop to that as quickly as he could.


She knew these were the last remnants of objects like this anywhere in The City and men, and women, paid very good money to get in this room for a reason. Still, that reason did not hang on the walls or from the ceiling or cover the bed. It padded around unhappily getting ready and that just wouldn’t do. Not for the show.


Lorelei guessed she had more luxuries than any other person in Sector 5, yet none of it pleased her. It didn’t make her glad or joyful and she would give it all away if she didn’t need it to do this job she had been damned to do, this prison she was kept in by the very man who promised her he would get her out. Yet she would rather be tortured by an Ordinator like him and die 100 painful deaths than take him up on that offer. She couldn’t get out… not yet… not just yet.


She shook her head and cleared her blue eyes. It didn’t do to dwell on it.


She went to her closet and chose a costume for the evening. It was hot already and once the Rose filled with people it would become sweaty and more than uncomfortable – stifling is more like it. She chose a skimpy, beaded, belly baring emerald two piece outfit. She’d likely lose half of it anyway, especially with Absalom not stopping by. Who knew how the night would go? If she found the right partner before then, it wouldn’t be necessary to do the whole show and dance…


Once she was dressed she looked at herself in the mirror and stared at her face, her full lips formed a ruby pout, her porcelain skin perfect like a dolls, and those blue eyes like what she imagined the thing called an ocean must have looked like once before the darkness overtook them.


Before she became… this… she’d been a well-educated child and had read many books, she knew what the world had been like. She had dreams of finding that beautiful, perfect, colorful world that once existed, that place where hope was born and lived always. She still dreamed of sapphire oceans and white cloud filled skies, emerald grasses and leaf filled trees, rosy, red birds and pink fragrant flowers, buttery butterflies and a bright brilliant yellow sun, and that thing called a rainbow, that glorious, miraculous mixture of all the colors together.


“It must be like that still, somewhere,” she said out loud to herself, “And that ocean, and I will see it one day.” The thought finally brought a smile of hope to her own face.


She took herself and that smile and carried it out the door, down the hallway past the other rooms and the sensual noises emanating from those rooms, down the well worn stairs and finally to a hallway right off the main room.


She waited until Rashimi announced her and took to the stage. She joined the other musicians who had already been playing for some time, coming out to dance and sing just one song for now.


There's a song that's inside of my soul
It's the one that I've tried to write over and over again
I'm awake in the infinite cold
But You sing to me over and over and over again

So I lay my head back down
And I lift my hands
and pray to be only Yours
I pray to be only Yours
I know now you're my only Hope

Sing to me the song of the stars
Of Your galaxy dancing
and laughing
and laughing again
When it feels like my dreams are so far
Sing to me of the plans that You have for me over again

So I lay my head back down
And I lift my hands and pray
To be only yours
I pray to be only yours
I know now you're my only Hope

I give You my destiny
I'm giving You all of me
I want Your symphony
Singing in all that I am
At the top of my lungs
I'm giving it back

So I lay my head back down
And I lift my hands and pray
To be only yours
I pray to be only yours
I pray to be only yours
I know now you're my only Hope



She finished and bowed and made her way to the bar, not too easily as she had to stop and greet and converse with many a customer and hopeful client along the way. Finally at the bar she made herself a wine and waited for Rashimi to join her, to go over the schedule and gossip for the evening.

Derngar spit out some blood and smiled. His teeth were red with his own blood. He looked at the half-orc standing across from him and laughed. Derngar stepped forward landed a hard left in his opponents gut and as the man bent over, brought up his right fist under the half-orc’s chin. The half-orc left his feet as he flew backwards, landing on his back and not moving. A sudden cheer arose as the fight finished, with other members of the fight club waking up the fallen fighter, and mobbing Derngar to congratulate him, especially if they bet on him.

Derngar stumbled up the stairs from the fight club to the main floor and over to the bar, still smiling. He collected his winnings and a very large drink. As people passed they slapped him on the shoulder and he exchanged the occasional hand shake with those he knew better. Derngar was here often. It was easy money, he won most of his fights. And of course, if he ever needed to make the fight stop he could. He merely had to say the word and the violence stopped. That was a new experience for him. His years in the darkness had been filled with terror and violence that never stopped, never cared.

Ever since he had escaped the prison, Derngar had been enjoying almost everything about the surface world. He fought (when he chose), he drank (often to excess), he gambled. And he was joyous in it. He did not join the old men at the bar scowling into their bitter dregs. He was with the other young men and women by the fire, roaring with laughter. It was as though he was making up for all the life he had lost in the pit.

He ordered a large plate of meat and cheese. As he ate he remembered back to when he had first gotten out of the pit. The first thing he had done was steal some food. He gorged himself. Had he know how badly the family he stole from needed it, he never would have. But he had no concept of how bad things were. He had paid that family back several times over now.
It had been a rough adjustment of course. He had no idea how to even live outside of the pit. Other than what his precious book spoke about. But those estates and farms were gone. However, Dernagr was happy. Almost maddenly so. For all the patrols, the lack of food, the oppression, this was still paradise compared to where he had spent his entire life.

So he laughed at life, for he was alive. He laughed with friends for he had them. He ate and drank because he could. It had been little over a year since he had escaped. And while the joy of life had not worn off, he was able to see around him more. He saw that other people were not happy, could not be happy. They did not appreciate what they had. But he also saw the Magi at work. He saw their henchmen taking whatever they wished. He saw their vile golem walking the street. And while he drank and fought, there were times he was quiet and read from a small book that was quite precious to him. It seemed odd sometimes to see this huge man, alone in a quiet corner at times, reading a tiny book. Of course no one at the Velvet Rose dared ask what it was or why. They all enjoyed Derngar’s fights and jokes, but never asked more. He never told more.

Tonight Lorelei was out on stage in a beautiful green outfit. Derngar ordered another drink and took a seat between the stage and the bar. He sat and closed his eyes listening to her song. He was quite, and did not move during her whole song. He did not devour her with his eyes as so many did, he never watched her on stage, though he always listened. After she was done, and had moved to the bar, as though the spell was lifted and he could look at her, he did for a minute. And then picked up his beer and moved back to the fire. The smile and laughter returning to his face as people joined him there.

As Derngar was talking a sudden wetness cover his eye. Someone pointed out that he had blood dripping down his forehead. he hadn't noticed it before, the excitement of the fight dulled any pain he ever felt. Not to mention that fact that he was so used to pain he often forgot to acknowledge it. Taking leave of the folks by the fire Derngar heads over to the corner where the elf healer held court. He stood patiently as she treated a small child with some manner of rash. After they left he sat down in her chair. "Hi Rana, I know, I know. if I am going to fight I have to deal with the consequences. You have told me." he grinned at her. "No need to anything drastic, if you could just get the blood to slow down I would appreciate it. I know you have mended worse on me in less time" Derngar looked at Rana a little sheepishly and leaned his head down for the elf to take a look.

~ Rána admonished Derngar in her elvish tongue, her attention still focused on her current patient as she rubbed the oil from a plant leaf into his skin. "<If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times,> Son of Korgon, <I am not wasting what few herbs I can find in this sector on any more of your foolish bloodsports.>"

She turned to try and glare sternly at him, but when she saw him leaning towards her with that smile of his, she laughed in spite of herself. She could never be severe with the large human; she was just too fond of him. She capitulated as her language slipped back into common. "Well, t'ey really gave yer hard head quite a wallop t'is time. Very well t'en, hold still..."

Rána set the child in front of her down off of the barstool and ushered him back to his worried father. "It's no' t'blight, not'ing more t'an a stubborn heat rash. Keep him away from t'forges, and keep t'skin dry, it should start to improve once t'weather does."

She cleaned her hands with an alcohol-soaked towel as she climbed up on the barstool herself, so as to be able to reach the towering fighter better, and clicked her tongue gently at him. "No no, don't lean down, tilt yer head back...t'at's t'e way..."

Derngar knew as well as Rána did that head wounds often bled profusely anyway, but far worse after alcohol had been consumed in quantity. What she was really looking for were signs of concussion. His eyes dilated reflexively in the lamplight, and he didn't seem to have trouble keeping his balance even in this awkward position, so she was fairly confident that the injury was superficial. She cleaned away the worst of the blood from his face and beard with a damp cloth.

"...Normally, a palmful of ice would ha' been best, but on a hot night like t'is, ice is a rare commodity..." Instead, Rána took a bitter-tasting root from one of her medicinal pouches and bit off the end of it, gnashed it with her teeth, then spat it out again and placed the wad against the laceration on Derngar's brow. "It's a congealant," she explained. "Here, hold it t'ere and apply pressure for just a moment.."

As soon as Derngar had hold of the make-shift poultice, Rána hopped off of the stool and made her way to the bar. She recognized Fitz on the far end, and rested a hand on the bookish gnome's shoulder in a warm, but wordless greeting as she simultaneously stretched over for a fresh pitcher of water. He seemed engaged in conversation with one of the more isolated patrons, and Rána did not want to intrude on their privacy.

She passed by Lorelei just as the exotic singer was pouring herself a glass of wine, and Rána gave her a nod of appreciation. Her song tonight had been extra beautiful, and though the setting for it was all wrong, it made Rána nostalgic for the voices of the totemic elves, which had not lifted in song to their gods in nearly half a century.

The healer returned to Derngar's side, and she placed the pitcher of water in his large, open palm. "Looks to have done t'e trick, yer bleeding has stopped for now. Keep to drinking t'is tonight, or it might weep open again."

Rána's gaze danced briefly between Derngar and Lorelei, her keen senses unable to miss how the air changed around him whenever the enchanting girl took stage. Impulsively, the question was free from Rána's lips before she could wrestle it back down. "...Why don't ya just talk to her? She's a strong-minded sort, plenty of wit about her...I could invite her to yer table if ye're preferring." ~

Derngar smiled down at Rana. "<You always forget mother learned me little Elvish>" he replies in a broken, halting, and heavy accent, but it was in Elvish. "<Not need herbs, need>" "OW" he said suddenly in common again as Rana poked the poultice. Whether it was because it had shifted, he wasn't holding it with enough pressure or she couldn't listen to his broken elvish anymore he didn't know. And her face was inscrutable. To be safe he decided to stick with common.

"Come on Rana, you know I can't do much more than steal and fight. I am not proud of it, it is what it is. I can make money fighting. That lets me pay back some folks who helped me. Its not like I can apprentice with a cobbler now. Maybe a brewer though" he says giving her a crooked grin and drinking some water. "Probably make him go broke with training me" he laughed.

With her last words, Derngar finally looked over at Lorelei. His eyes lingered over her face, she was smiling and talking. But he could see something else, something she was covering. He didn't know what. But he had seen that face before many times. His mother wore that face for him. Smiling and telling stories while she hid her terror, fear and despair. Derngar's smile faded slowly and he turned back to Rana. He smiled weakly at her. "Thanks Rana, But She is busy, you see that. She shares her songs, those I can share. I don't need more than that." Rana knew he was lying, it was the same conversation they had time and again. "Maybe when I have had a few more drinks. And I am not bleeding so much." he says stepping down from the stool.

"Here" he said dumping well over half his winnings in her hand. "Get what herbs you need for the little ones fallaner." He bends over and gives her a kiss on the top on her head. Like she was his little sister and not almost a hundred year older than him. He looks at his pitcher of water and gives a little sigh. His grin returns a little as he give Rana a wink, and heads over to a quite corner. There he drinks his pitcher of water. he glances occasionally at Lorelei, catches Rana watching him some times and point to his water, grins and rubs his stomach to show her how good it is.