Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="PhoenixAsh" data-source="post: 2826490" data-attributes="member: 18230">Update #34: Sharn Soul-SearchingThe swish of robes marks the dawn air.  Iefan Conway raises his head, letting his meditation come to an end.  The faint aura that surrounds him dissipates into the morning sun.Carr Vallant stands just inside the edge of the meditation glade.  Iefan observes that the Archbishop’s features and posture appears uncommonly awake for the dawning hour.  He smiles, both in a sudden flash of insight and greeting.  The Arch-bishop has not yet gone to bed.“I never understood why you don’t take your gifts further Iefan.” It’s the easy uptake of conversation between two men who have an ongoing dialogue, yet Iefan senses a hint of consternation under the opening remark as well.“The fields are heavy the harvesters few?” Iefan turns the quote into a probe of Vallant’s disquiet.Vallant sighs and holds out a hand to Iefan, helping him up from his kneeling posture, “No it’s more along the lines of, ‘Let those who can lead, do so.’”“Ahh so that’s what’s troubling you.  Carr, I don’t wish to leave my diocese, there are bonds between those I guide and myself, my congregation, my initiates, the novitiates and clerics who are growing into their own gifts.  I don’t feel the call to lead within the church, only within my people.  I’m a shepherd Carr, not a politician.”“Which is why we so desperately need you.  I won’t trouble you with it this season again.  But Iefan, it might be the bonds that you speak of holding you to your diocese are the sacrifice of moving towards the will of the Host.”There is silence as the two men walk from the meditation glade, each lost in his thoughts.  As their footsteps start to echo on the well-worn temple flagstone, Vallant once again picks up the conversation.  “Actually I didn’t come to talk to you about that.  I would like you to help me ascertain the gifts of one of the clerics I’m mentoring.”“You haven’t done that yourself already?” “I have not: although I sense great potential. I would like you to,” He pauses, “Iefan, I would like for you to place him, preferably in a very challenging district.  Siôn needs to be tried.”“I have a position in Lower Tavick’s Landing. The people are poor and there’s the usual amount of squabbling.” Iefan sighs, “But I sense that isn’t what you mean by ‘tried’”.“No it isn’t.  Perhaps one of your clerics could use a sabbatical.  My communes have suggested that Siôn should be tested in a place of great strife.  I believe he will weather whatever circumstances are thrown at him,” Unbroken sunlight washes over the temple spire. “Especially under your guidance.  You’ve proven that with the right support and the right gifts even a post at Blackstone church can be maintained.”Iefa’s expression clouds, “Sasha is gifted.  And once I spoke about her, much as you are of your young protégé.  Yet I fear that the area is becoming too much even for her.  She doesn’t understand that just having been there for two years is an accomplishment no other cleric I’ve worked with could boast of.  Carr, the young people we place there come out injured in spirit, scarred.  I fear for Sasha and what the post there is doing to her.  And for what? The Ravers continue to rage.  The area is still a desolate wasteland.  I think even a cleric as talented as Sasha would be better off serving where she can actively refine her gifts.  Fallen seems to be a prison sentence that wears at the sanity of any who abide there.  It should be abandoned.  We need to be wise of how we invest what’s entrusted to us.”“Place Siôn there.  Sasha deserves a sabbatical.”“I’m sorry Carr.  I don’t want to watch another cleric fall into despair and hopelessness.  There are some demons we are meant to fight against and there are some that we would be wisest to flee from.” The Archbishop stops, catching the embers of emotion that he senses could become flames if he pushes too hard.  Iefan’s inability to separate his heart from those he works with is the priest’s greatest short falling and his greatest strength. “Only once more Iefan.  If Siôn fails, I’ll personally sign the disbandment of Blackstone.”  Seeing argument rise once more in Iefan’s eyes he adds, “Pray about it.  Test Siôn.  Visit Sasha.  Meditate on this before you answer.”In a swish of robes and vestments the Archbishop turns to leave, “May the Host guide you, my friend.” *** Iefan motions Siôn to a chair across from his desk, greeting the young man with a smile. Sandy brown hair, a trimmed beard, and a worn leather scabbard catch his eye; as does a scar that runs the length of the left side of his face. The young man moves with confidence and grace.“Greetings in the name of the Host,” Siôn repeats the standard salutation with easy confidence.Iefan responds with a query, “What does that mean ‘in the name of the Host?’”A spark flares in Siôn’s eyes as he quickly grapples the testing phrase, “The implication is that one is a messenger from the Host, capable of sharing their acknowledgement and invested with their authority.”“What message do you have from them?  What greeting?  And with what power haveyou been invested?”Iefan twists the catechism, seeking honesty instead of rote, character instead of tradition.  His eyes lock on those of the young man sitting across from him and he lets his own gifts and intuitions have free reign.  They ferret out the core of passion in Siôn, weighing and testing along with his words.  In the end it is there: Unwavering conviction, hope, and altruism.  A triple bound cord of strength; the strongest gifts of the Host.***Ruel Dunnanne d’Phiarlan sits alone in a messy room at the Boar’s Head in Sharn.  He scans the assorted junk left by his roommates with annoyance.  Originally, the wizard had sought more lavish accommodations after the crew had been dismissed for shore leave while the Liralen was repaired, but the exorbitant price had made him balk.  Instead, he decided to lodge with the other Irregulars he had worked with the most closely onboard, and Dox had come through with an incredibly cheap price at this Changling-friendly inn.“There are costs in gold and then there are costs in aggravation,” he mutters, turning his eyes back to his work.  The parchment before him is filled with gibberish.  Gibberish, that is, unless one were to have his elaborate four-language alphanumeric substitution cipher in their possession.  Ruel dips his quill back into the ink and considers a moment, the tip wavering over the bottom of the page.  Finally, he sketches a hasty rendering of a dancing toad.“What will the Hydra make of this, I wonder,” he muses quietly.  As if in answer, a floorboard creaks outside his door and a shadow blocks the lantern-light spilling under the inn room door.***Dox stares down his foe, opposite him.  The changling has carefully crafted a perfectly placid expression and the tools in hand are good, more than enough to best his opponent.  He can see the sweat rolling down from the man’s brow.  The man’s eyes flick down and he swallows in reflexive greed at the large pile of gold and silver on the table.  Finally he sets his expression, far too late, and pushes in the remainder of his money.“Call.”Dox breaks into a grin and lays down his cards.  The rest of the table cheers and pats the changling on the back, while his opponent groans and throws his own hand away, covering his face in anguish.“Looks like my run of bad luck is over,” Dox says brightly, pulling the pile of coins towards him.A couple of throw away hands he leaves the table to rejoin Alexandre and One-Eyed Jack at the front of the casino.  The two are laughing and talking like old buddies, which by all appearance they are.  The Irregulars first order of business on landing in Sharn was finding a guide and when Alexandre had recognized Jack, the decision was made to hire him on the spot.  Most of the guides looked little better than thieves and cutpurses and Dox reasoned better a thief who was a friend than a stranger.Alexandre isn’t that far removed from a pirate anyways.“There he is!  Your luck change any today?” Alexandre calls out as Dox approaches.“Some,” Dox smiles, glancing briefly at Jack.  “Good enough for a round or two at the Boar’s Head, if you lot are up for it.”“Always!” Alexandre grins, “Come on Jack, I’ll buy you a round!  Hey did, I tell you about how this guy picked a lock in five seconds right in front of the head guard on our ship?”“Really?” Jack comments, smiling appraisingly at Dox.  “That takes guts, but not a lot of smarts.”Alexandre grins, “You should have seen the guard’s face, he looked like he swallowed a lemon!”Dox chuckles, “I was just… eager to help.”Alexandre guffaws, “Aye, if you take too long to find your keys, Dox’ll pop the lock for ya lickety split!”“So how long are you all planning on staying in Sharn?  If your gonna be awhile I could get you a job, old buddy.”  Jack looks askance at Dox, “Your friend too, I imagine.”“Not too long..  Just until our ship is ready to go,” Dox interjects quickly.“Aye, so let’s worry about having fun, work can wait!  Let’s have at the port ‘till we leave port!” Alexandre laughs again.“Sounds like you’ve already had at it plenty ‘Xandre!” Dox laughs along with him, “How do you keep winning at these places when you’re skunked like that?”“By doing the unexpected!” Alexandre shouts, drawing looks from all quarters as they meander through the skyways of Sharn.  “Same way I bested those toughs at Stormhome, did I tell you about that one Jack?”Dox breathes a sign of relief as the Boar’s Head looms ahead.  “Definitely could use a few drinks now,” he mutters, opening the door to the changling-dominated inn.  He smiles at the plethora of forms and faces inside, many not even making a passing attempt at normalcy.  Most of his kind spent much of their lives trying to blend in; here they can set themselves apart freely.  He hasn’t felt this at home anywhere else.A hand on each of their shoulders spins Dox and Alexandre around.  Audric has been waiting for them and looks at them seriously, “Come upstairs, we need to speak privately.”***Iefan Conway returns to his office and shuts the door behind him, pressing aside an errant wish to shut his worries away just as easily.  He finds his way to his desk and sits, reflecting on the stagnant darkness suffusing him.Slowly he straightens in his chair, a gesture and a supplication is all that is required to summon the light and banish the darkness.  He reaches into his desk and retrieves two envelopes, reading the familiar label on each cover: Blackstone Church, Fallen District, Sharn and Sasha Larkana.Iefan takes a tremulous breath as he looks over the file on Blackstone.  The story is a familiar one, inside and out of Sharn.  The Glass Tower fell out of the sky eighty years ago, devastating what was once known as Godsgate.  Rather than pick up the pieces, gold was spent on grander edifices and temples in better locations.  The district was abandoned, overlooked in an era where the machine of war outweighed the cause of charity.  It became a slum and a wasteland, abandoned by the government and the church.But there were some who would not or could not abandon the district.  The survivors banded together and struggled with each other over the basics of survival, food and shelter.  Yet there was more than that.  The popular rumor was that the spirits of the restless dead inhabited the survivors and turned them into the Ravers, urban barbarians, barely more than wild animals.Iefan glances to Sasha’s file.  Tracing his fingers along the weathered envelope, he feels emptiness inside where once there had been excitement.  He had thought she was the answer.He had not been the only one, for the signs seemed crystal clear.  He found her as a small child outside Blackstone, clad in clean white and surrounded by fragmented glass.  She could have been one of the victims from the Glass Tower tragedy, had it not been sixty years after that cursed day.  She was unmoving, certainly dead.  Miraculously, however, he had touched her shoulder and she stirred, not only was she alive but uninjured.  She had smiled up to him with a light that could only have been sent by Dol Arrah.“Far too long since I have seen that smile,” Iefan murmurs, “Only tears and bitter hardness.  What have I done to you child?”</blockquote>

Verification