Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 544301" data-attributes="member: 1210">Cinnamon and cloves and cardamom- strange woods and strange scents- the stink of fish from the docks district- the hustle and bustle of a major trade hub, with merchants from everywhere and their customers, buying and selling everything that anyone could want, from slaves to drugs, spices and food to exotic woods, silk and satin, cloth of all descriptions, pigments and jewels and weapons and perfumes.  This is Pesh City.Ah, Pesh.  It seems that anything can happen here, from assassination to romance, mysterious magic to alchemical experiment, underground pit fighting to pederasty.  Pesh is notorious for its strange mores, its odd culture, its fantastic cuisine.  But the culture and the food and the strange ways aren’t what our heroes are here for.  In fact, at this point they don’t even all know each other.  But soon enough they will, and our diverse little group will come together, all for their own reasons, all with common purpose... to a certain extent.Some of you know Horbin.  He’s been traveling for the last five years, serving as ship’s priest on a variety of vessels, trying to make a decent living with a little less of the risking of the neck part of it that he had as an adventurer.  He’s disembarking about now, head held high, happy to be on solid ground for a while- though he’s just as happy to be at sea.  He misses Till, his old shield-bearer, who’s off training on the nearby isle of Khelm at present, but he figures they’ll meet again soon enough.  Horbin breathes deeply, drawing in the smell of fish that wafts through the seaward side of this great metropolis, smiling at the scent of spices that Pesh is so famous for.  The crowd is thick, with vendors of various foods on either side of the street, warehouses and sailors’ bars on both edges.  As he walks, he hears his name from up ahead.“Horbin!” cries a dirty man, sitting cross-legged with a begging bowl in his lap.  He doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to the priest of Dexter, but our hero, intrigued, walks towards him, trying to pick up the rest of what he’s saying.“Blind justice from a blind god!” the man raves, and Horbin realizes he has no eyes.  Surely, Horbin thinks, this is a reference to Dexter- the blind god that Horbin himself serves.  He stops before the man, and the beggar cocks his head and looks right at him from his empty sockets.  “Law and chaos clash, and on both sides the good slips through the fingers.  Blood, blood will spill!  Alas, that the Light sides with mere Law when Good is so much more important!”  The dirty man stops.“Well,” Horbin starts to answer after a moment, but the stranger cuts him off.“Arr, and the spit of a thousand mouths will drool down on the losers.  Who takes only one side?”"Uh, who are-" Horbin tries to ask, but is cut off again.“Fools!  Fools and old men whose time is past!  Let that not be thy fate!  Arr, the bile rises- let it not past thy lips.  Read instead, for the good book will guide you through the fluid world.  What is change?  What is good?  Arr!  What is justice?  The law or the right?  And if Law loses sight with its blind eyes of the good, what then is to be done?”  Horbin waits a moment, thoughtful, and tosses a coin in the beggar’s bowl.  “Who are you?” he asks.  The man mutters for a moment, then cries out again.“When she speaks, she lies- remember that honeyed words poison teeth!”“O-kay,” Horbin answers, shaking his head slightly.  The man mutters to himself; nothing else seems forthcoming.  “Right,” the cleric finishes, and walks on, looking for a room.  Pesh, he thinks.  Weird things always happen in Pesh.</blockquote>

Verification