D&D 5E (2014) Al-Qadim Moving Through the Flame

[Quickleaf]

[SECTION]Just as Harun and Amina have risen from sharing tea with the shifty jann and the two boys, they encounter Hadia al-Sarraf returning. The matronly woman smiles with angelic kindness, though her eyes bely some underlying tension, "Please, be at ease. You are guests here. The water bearer wished to speak with your holy woman and dervish in private...I believe it is about spiritual matters. I can't allow more to see the water bearer at once; he is not accustomed to so many guests... and he is still recovering. Though thanks to your mistress," she places a hand on Amina's shoulder, "his wounds have been lifted. Please, give them time. My boys can set you up in several of the smaller chambers where you may unburden yourselves from your travels..."[/SECTION]

[SECTION]Raising his tea cup under his veil, Usqual watches Hadia from the corner of his eye, still sitting perfectly straight. "We could trade tales while we await your friends?" He offers with congenial smoothness. "I could tell you of how Ubar, which you call Qaybar, came to wander the sands. Or of how Amir Bouladin came to swear fealty to the Grand Caliph. Or perhaps the tale of the sundering of the two great jann coalitions to the High Desert and the Haunted Lands? My people have stories that would astound and delight you, I am certain." There is an easy mannerism to the jann, as if he were simply offering a way to pass the time, perhaps too easy.[/SECTION]

 

[Thateous]

"My mother was siswa... though I know very little about her. You mentioned a boon earlier, but before I answer that... how do you continue knowing that there are those that wish to destroy. That see your very existence as a threat to everything they hope to attain. Enlightened clergymen who, despite your projection of self-control would not hesitate to try banish you from this world? How does one continue..." she let's the question hang before continue.

"Do you think I could continue with such weight." she adds under her breath, staring off into the distance.

 

[Shayuri]

For a moment it was not Amina meeting Hadia's eyes, but someone else. Someone coldly assessing Hadia and Usqual, tallying the weapons in the room, cataloguing the available exits. Then her eyes of polished jet landed on the children and she paused.

"I apologize for my impatience," she said softly. "and for any impolite act my duty requires of me."

Amina then lifted her voice to call down the passage, "Honored Vizier! Do you have need of me?"

Then she waited. Akilah's response would determine what followed.

 

[Thateous]

"No, not at this time." she yells back. Akilah looks back to the water bearer. patiently awaiting a response.

 

[Shayuri]

Amina nodded and sat back down. Her instincts had proven correct. Not all was as it seemed here. Akilah's slightly emphasized qualifier 'this' implied that she was not ruling out a need for aid...when there were two of them alone in a room with an injured man.

"Thank you, Hadia. Your courtesy is more than I deserve. I shall for the moment wait here. I have little to unpack, and will only need a moment to be ready to sleep when the time comes."

To Usqual she added, "I would enjoy hearing one of your tales. Perhaps tell me your very favorite story. The one you enjoyed hearing the most when it was told to you."

 

[Matthan]

Husam dutifully remains seated while the handmaiden frets over her master. Once the vizier has calmed her, he joins in her request, "I always enjoy stories and I have never traveled far from Tajar. Please, share with us."

 

[Quickleaf]

"If I had to guess, they fear you. Who you are, what you are. People easily turn to fear when dealing with things they can not hope to comprehend. Do you see your... abilities as a gift, or a curse, and how did you come about them?"

"My mother was siswa... though I know very little about her. You mentioned a boon earlier, but before I answer that... how do you continue knowing that there are those that wish to destroy. That see your very existence as a threat to everything they hope to attain. Enlightened clergymen who, despite your projection of self-control would not hesitate to try banish you from this world? How does one continue..." she let's the question hang before continue.

"Do you think I could continue with such weight." she adds under her breath, staring off into the distance.

[SECTION]Continuing his tale after a moment's reflection, the water bearer speaks, "When the troops of the First Caliph discovered I was an ice trader, they requisitioned me to deliver ice to the war camps – for the path to the Enlightened Faith was carved by the First Caliph's sword. And so I dug deeper and deeper into the ice. It was while harvesting ice deep below the oasis that I found a man trapped within, his eyes like pale crystal, his skin unblemished. In my youthful foolishness, I cut him free of the ice." Letting his fingers trace the edges of his wound, Malsoor is satisfied to feel it mostly healed already. "It was he who bestowed the gift of immortality to me, in gratitude for freeing him from his ancient prison."

Taking the blankets in hand, Malsoor peels them back so that he may stretch his legs properly. "Was this a gift or a curse? Perhaps both. When you have seen what I have, perhaps it is both. I was still young in understanding the gift he'd bestowed upon me, but when I awoke, the man was gone. It did not take the Caliph's soldiers long to deduce my unholy nature, and they intended to destroy me, but a sahera (female sorcerer) in the Caliph's army took pity on my fate." The way he intones 'took pity', the bitterness is written clearly on the water bearer's face. "Not wanting the Caliph's enemies to take control of the ice, and not wishing to see me burnt alive, she killed two birds with one stone. The sahera turned the ice to flowing water so that it encircled the entire oasis beneath the ground, receiving the rain waters from the Yabki Mountains. I did not realize at the time that, with my connection to the waters of life, I could not cross such an obstacle..."

Malsoor gingerly swings his legs off the side of the bed, taking a deep breath and sitting up straight. There is only the faintest white scar along his neck hinting of his injury. "But the course of water may change over the years. That is its nature. Knowing this, the sahera further cast upon me a geas that as long as the waters of Hakim flowed pure, I would be bound to this oasis till the end of my days. So you see, cleric... Your magic has set me free." He stares intently at Akilah, for it seems history has repeated itself in the freeing of a second man from Hakim Oasis, only Malsoor does not seem intent on "gifting" her with immortality. Unless she were to ask it as her 'boon.'[/SECTION]

 

[VLAD the Destroyer]

Salahuddin nods to Usqual.

"It would be an honor if you would tell us one of your peoples tales. I always seek out the histories and stories of the Jann. It only helps to further my understanding of those to which I have bound myself."

As Salahuddin asks for Usqual to tell his tale he reaches out to Easifa.

My Gen please go and look in on the Vizier and Lal. I fear that there might be trouble brewing and would like to be warned if they are in danger.

 

[Quickleaf]

Amina nodded and sat back down. Her instincts had proven correct. Not all was as it seemed here. Akilah's slightly emphasized qualifier 'this' implied that she was not ruling out a need for aid...when there were two of them alone in a room with an injured man.

"Thank you, Hadia. Your courtesy is more than I deserve. I shall for the moment wait here. I have little to unpack, and will only need a moment to be ready to sleep when the time comes."

To Usqual she added, "I would enjoy hearing one of your tales. Perhaps tell me your very favorite story. The one you enjoyed hearing the most when it was told to you."

Husam dutifully remains seated while the handmaiden frets over her master. Once the vizier has calmed her, he joins in her request, "I always enjoy stories and I have never traveled far from Tajar. Please, share with us."

Salahuddin nods to Usqual.

"It would be an honor if you would tell us one of your peoples tales. I always seek out the histories and stories of the Jann. It only helps to further my understanding of those to which I have bound myself."

As Salahuddin asks for Usqual to tell his tale he reaches out to Easifa.

My Gen please go and look in on the Vizier and Lal. I fear that there might be trouble brewing and would like to be warned if they are in danger.

[SECTION]As the invisible Easifa drifts through the caravanserai's tunnels like an evening breeze, Usqual's eyes sparkle above his veil. The jann knows that stories have power. His voice is steady yet sing-song, wavering between the tone of one seeking solace in tales and the one issuing ominous warning disguised in flower prose. "My most favorite of stories? Ah, when I was only older than these boys by a sand's width," he spreads his hand gesturing to Hadia al-Sarraf's sons Na'im and Naji, a thin stream of glowing sand leaving his grasp to swirl and hiss upon the rug you sit upon, forming a sparkling mote of ambiguous miniature sand shapes. "This is the story that was told to me, that I now tell to you..."

"Shakar, the hero after whom my people the Shakari are named, was a great warrior who'd killed every one to challenge him. Yet his heart was unsettled," narrates Usqual as a small turbaned scimitar-wielding warrior appears in the glowing sand that seems to hover just above the rug, as if standing on the edge of a dune and scouring the horizon. "He longed to be reunited with his family who'd taken refuge in the great city Ubar, but the Misty Shore separated them and it was a boundary not one jann was permitted to cross. Yet, day and night, Shakar went out into the desert seeking a way to cross the impenetrable threshold, calling to the stars and moon to aid him. No settlement would give him peace. Shakar searched until he could search no more." Some of the sand forms into a distant palace wavering as if in the desert's heat, a sandstorm preventing the sand-form hero from approaching until he falls to his knees in despair. Small wisps of glowing sand hover above your heads like stars.

"Thereupon, Shakar crossed paths with a woman – the Loregiver – and thus she spake unto him, 'Why do you seek in the world what lies beyond it? Why do you search for what you already possess?' For such was the wisdom of the Loregiver that it left Shakar in bewilderment." Here, Usqual crosses his mismatched copper-and-green eyes to the amusement of the two boys. The glowing sands continue illustrating the tale with a robed wavering image of a woman, presumable the Loregiver, resting her hand on Shakar's shoulder. "Sitting in silence with the Loregiver's word, far from the cities of man and tribes of other jann, Shakar realized that his journey revealed the way through the Misty Shore. But he couldn't walk it alone. Therefore, he went unto the coalition known as the House of Sihr and shared the wisdom he had gained. From Shakar, the sheikhs of my people learned how to take caravans along the secret routes between the wolds. For while one jann could not cross that threshold, in the tribe lay the strength of many hearts."

A glowing sand caravan traces its way across the rug, wending around tea cups, dates, and bowls of salt. "And they say that Shakar did one day visit his family in Ubar, but they were afraid of the secret caravan routes, and so they remain in Ubar till the day that my tribe frees them from their fear and shows them the way." Spreading his hands, the jann bows his head, signaling the end of the tale.[/SECTION]

 

[Thateous]

"Well before you head off to explore your new found freedom I require a few things." she says standing up from her seated position next to the water-bearer. "I'll be keeping an eye on you and for that I require something personal of yours. So, should you ever lose hold of your enlightened self, know that I will find and destroy you." she says, her tone suddenly serious. "As for the boon you offered me. I'd like to call upon on your assistance, should I require it, in the future. Is that an obligation you are able to fulfill or would you care to negotiate the terms?" she says with a firmness on her proposition.