Nthal
Lizard folk in disguise
The Sins of the Fathers - 12/29/2019
Sigil is often called the Birdcage, mostly because of junk and ruin stacked upon itself in the Hive; the city’s largest ward and garbage pit combined. But, Sigil was also a cage, requiring a key to leave.
So, doesn’t that mean that every plane is a cage too, and the only reasons that people don’t realize it, is because they can’t see the bars?
Sigil is often called the Birdcage, mostly because of junk and ruin stacked upon itself in the Hive; the city’s largest ward and garbage pit combined. But, Sigil was also a cage, requiring a key to leave.
So, doesn’t that mean that every plane is a cage too, and the only reasons that people don’t realize it, is because they can’t see the bars?
I stared at Paradros, his words still echoing in my mind. I sat there mouth agape, unable to speak. Fortunately, I didn’t have to.
“What?!?” Beepu’s voice elevated a full octave, and he jumped up and was standing on his seat, fists clenched, and face the deepest red I had ever seen. “I cannot stay here, when I need to find my father!”
“Well that is indeed the problem,” Paradros calm response contrasted with Beepu’s rage. “Your father did help remove the weapons from the Kershak’s holdings. So, he is as culpable of the crimes, as Umbra was,” and Paradros looked each of us over quickly. “As are you all.”
‘Till the end of our days…’
“You can’t be serious?” Daneath said, approaching until he was within arm’s length of the elf. “We recover weapons you claim are stolen. Now I can understand a…reward for recovery. But to keep us here as well? That is a bit much.”
“The weapons are but one crime of Umbra’s,” the elf calmly spoke, meeting Daneath’s level gaze. “You and your…brother are the other. Now in the past, the Kershak handled this problem in a very straightforward manner; said problems were eliminated.” Paradros turned, and strode to where Iesa stood, the rogues face grim and eyes narrowed staring at the sun elf. “So, to keep your lives is a considerable gift…along with the wealth to live comfortably…here.”
‘Till the end of my days…’
“And the elves here are fine with this?” Iesa said slowly, as if still trying to comprehend what was transpiring. “They barely want us here to start with.”
“The Kershak has had a long arrangement with the elves here,” Paradros explained patiently. “We both work within the borders in the Misty Forest, and we do not interfere with each other’s affairs. And we do not harm each other or each other’s servants, hirelings or guests. Occasionally we trade favors. They will accede to the Kershak’s request. And so long as you stay here, you will not be subject to the Kershak’s…judgement.”
I sat there, silently as the others debated. I couldn’t find the words to interrupt. I was having flashbacks of my childhood; the feeling of being trapped.
“That still does not help me at all,” Beepu shouted. “I have important research that I must discuss—”
“—Well…” once again the elf spoke in that paternal voice. “As I said, the Kershak does not offer mercy to assistants of criminals. Perhaps if Ravalan was aware of that—"
“Ravalan?” Iesa’s head snapped to attention. “What does he—”
“—He too helped your father,” he said to Iesa, and then turned to Beepu still standing on his seat, “And yours now that I think about it. So, I did tell him about a threat of a nearby village though.” And as he spoke are wry smile crossed the lips of the elf.
“A village,” I said softly from my seat. “A human village. Outside the forest.” I looked at the elf squarely in the eyes.
He turned and looked at me for the first time, his gaze meeting mine. Normally people who look at my eyes for the first time give a reaction at seeing themselves in my eyes. But not him. His smile just got a bit wider.
“Why…yes in fact. I knew you were paying attention after all, Myrai. Quite the observant one.” His smile was wider, like a predator that had found prey. “And so…who knows what dangers lurk outside the safety of the forest.”
I barely heard what he had said. I already knew that he had laid a trap for the poor Firbolg. I didn’t need him to point out the obvious fact I already had. But I did hear one thing that made me suspicious.
My name.
We had not been introduced. We had never met. But he knew us. But while I somewhat expected he knew about the other three, as all their fathers were known to the Kershak. That he was familiar with me, my name, my eyes, gave me chills. What else did he know?
“I see that I have given you all…a lot to talk about,” he turned and again met everyone’s gaze as he started to move towards the entrance of the hall. “Since all of you have to agree, I will take my leave and let you…come to your senses.” And with confidence, he strode away from the four of us, finally calling over his shoulder as he left. “I will come collect the Kershak’s things in the morrow then.”
I sat there, confused on how we ended up at this turn of events. But it wasn’t long before the fighting started.
“We should take the deal,” Iesa said simply. “That’s a lot of—”
“—I can’t do that,” Daneath said angrily, turning towards his brother. “I remember my maste---father. I will not abandon him, not when he told me to seek him out some day.”
“That’s nice,” Iesa spat back. “Your ‘master’ set you up. He trained you, right? Clothed you? Fed you? Must have been nice to have an iron spoon in your mouth.”
“It was thankless work,” Daneath retorted. “You trained, and if you did poorly, you were whipped. It wasn’t a grand party. But I respected what he was doing, and I respect him enough to find him.”
“Nice. Beats you like a dog, and like a dumb puppy you come back for more. Still, at least he filled your bowl.”
“What is your issue here?” Daneath demanded.
“My ‘issue’ is that while you got your puppy food, I was on the streets, being beaten by bullies, by adults, by anyone who wanted what little I had. That I had to steal food to keep my mother and I alive. Where was our ‘loving’ father’s contribution to our table? Where was he when my…” and he stopped and turned away from Daneath. “Why would I want to find him? He didn’t need me, and I don’t…need…him.”
It was quiet for a moment after the exchange. I knew Iesa’s story; -so close to my own, yet so different. I knew Daneath’s desire as well, for a father that was a distant idea in the past. I wanted to say something to both of them, but of course;
“Look you two,” Beepu started with a fiery look in his eye. “I say you go find him, and Daneath you hold him, while Iesa punches. Then you bond and drink or do whatever. I do not care. All I know is that your father, Umbra, was the last being to be travelling with my father. And I need you to get over your father issues and get back on the road to find mine.”
“You just want to finish your…contraption,” Iesa said. “You’re just using us to get to your father.”
“YES! You get it!” Beepu yelled triumphantly to the shock of the brothers. “I do not care anything about Umbra, except he is following my father. And if they split paths…I know who I am following. But for now, the paths are the same. And I will still help you until that day comes.”
“Wow…so supportive Beepu. Thanks?” Daneath said questioningly. “Look Iesa, find him and ask him, punch him if you—”
“Unless he has 16,000 crowns in his coin purse, I don’t want to spend the time looking. That is enough to never have to…steal again. A nice little cottage in the trees here—
“—Alone. You keep chasing those elves, and they don’t bite. Here, they don’t even want humans around, and you are just going to fade away—”
“—Sounds great! Don’t need the attachments. Don’t care.”
“You realize,” Beepu started, rubbing his eyes, “Assuming that you share your fortune with us all equally, that I will likely outlive it, and still will need more funds for my research. So, your comforts do not really apply to me.”
“Ah…well…I’m sure we can come up with…something, Beepu.”
“Plus, you still owe me a debt for getting you out of jail,” Beepu pointed his finger at Iesa.
“You still holding that over me? I think I can pay that now.”
“Myr?” Daneath turned to me as I sat there listening. “You don’t want to stay here right?”
I sighed, stood up, and walked a couple of steps with my arms crossed towards a window overlooking the forest. I looked outside as I considered how to answer that question. The sun was high overhead still, just passing peak. A cool breeze ran through the tops of the trees as I gazed over the sea of verdant green. Finally, I spoke, slowly and with certainty.
“I don’t have the need to find Umbra. I was trying to help Beepu to find Pachook. And while I also can’t live on the money that is being offered—”
“What do you mean—“Iesa started.
“—I’m going to outlive you Iesa. I will barely be in middle age when you pass.”
“Damn…good looks AND long life.”
“Shut up and listen. There are two problems I have with this deal. The first, is that I will not be caged again; no matter how pretty the bars. I don’t expect any of you to understand that really. But I do expect you to understand this; Paradros and the Kershak are not telling us everything.”
Iesa was about to interject and stopped himself. He thought a moment and said, “Alright…go on. What’s the problem?”
“Paradros, just sent Ravalan into a trap. I don’t know what he said to him, but I am pretty sure it was different than what he told us. He practically admitted the plan to us. Then there’s the weapons. The Kershak, wants them so badly, he’ll pay a ridiculous amount of jinx for them. He could have killed either of you in Secomber in the last month to obtain them. Why didn’t he?”
“Why do you think Myr?” Daneath asked now becoming curious.
“I don’t know. But I do know, that the Kershak does know the real value of the bargain. And I think that reason is to take blades away from you and make you vulnerable. We don’t know how they fit in to their plans, but you don’t pay a barmy amount of jinx, unless it is the easiest and safest way to do it.”
“You mean…they are afraid of a sword and a dagger? Really?” Iesa responded, sounding uncertain and unsure.
“For that much jinx, he could commission a new set. So, there must be something else about them we don’t know.”
“Myrai is right,” Beepu spoke up his eyes darting back in forth as he started to think about how to make the weapons they held. “In fact, based on what we know of the pair of blades, it should perhaps take several thousand crowns, and some time to make a pair. That amount offered, 16,000 could craft a far greater set unless—”
“—Unless their true value is higher,” I said. “They have far more information about the weapons. They know far more about us. And they clearly don’t think much about disloyal subjects and their friends.”
“You think it’s a setup,” Iesa stated.
I nodded. “To make us vulnerable in some way. Then it won’t matter how much money we have. We’ll be in the dead book.”
Everyone was quiet, with only the barest sound of the night breeze starting outside. We all looked at each other for a moment and then Daneath started to nod. Next, I could see Beepu looking at the warrior, and he too nodded his approval. We then looked at Iesa and waited.
Iesa didn’t meet our eyes, and I could see him biting his lip thinking. Finally, he sighed and spoke;
“You’re right. So, what do we do?”
“We need protection; and it sounds like, that only King Melandrach can provide that. So, we solve this hobgoblin problem for him.”
“That makes sense to me,” Beepu said. “So, we head to the High Moor and start—”
“—Not yet, Beepu.” I interrupted. “I also don’t like that someone else is going to die, just because they helped us.”
“Ravalan,” Daneath said. “Yeah, we need to warn him.”
“You realize that also could be a trap Myr,” Iesa pointed out. “Paradros just laid it out for us.”
I nodded, “It’s true. So, I guess we can’t be surprised then when someone tries to kill us.”
“I guess not,” Iesa said with a wry grin. “So now what?”
“We leave, today.” I said. “We go find the village, we tell others that we are considering the offer. We know how to get back on our own.”
“That sounds like a plan,” Iesa said. “What do we need then?”
“Beepu and I can grab some supplies,” Daneath and motioned to the gnome “Come on.”
“Why me?” Beepu asked confused.
“Because you know where the best food is.”
Beepu was about to retort, and then thought better of it. He simply took the lead, saying as they left, “You just need a more sensitive nose, because if you…” fading away as they left, leaving Iesa and I alone in the hall.
After a moment Iesa looked at me, “What did you mean by being caged?” he finally asked, looking at me with a look of concern.
“We share something in common,” I said quietly. “We both were…abandoned. We both were poor. But, where you had…a mother, I was trapped in an orphanage.”
“Like the one I gave money to in Yartar? You were lucky.”
I shrug, “Not really. I was…deposited at…the Gatehouse in Sigil.”
“The Gatehouse? The way you said that was a bit…grim?”
“Well…the Gatehouse has several…occupants. The first are the barmy,” I looked at Iesa and realized that he didn’t grasp the word and tried again. “Insane. Dangerously insane people. And then you have just somewhat insane people. They wouldn’t hurt anyone, but they needed help. But they also take in ones that can’t take care of themselves. The infirm, the elderly and the young. So, I was a guest there for nearly seventeen years. I suppose it was better than the workhouses pretending to be orphanages. They would just work kids…to death. The Bleakers that ran the place didn’t do that, but they did expect you to pay back what you owed.”
“What you owed?”
I nodded, “Yeah, so from a babe I owed…what seemed to be a lot. They had this little book that they tracked your progress in. And the number would grow as you stayed and ate, and it would shrink just a little from chores. But it always grew it seemed. And if you tried to scamper off without paying…somehow, they’d find you, beat you for stealing, add that to your bill, and you’d go back to work. I was maybe ten years old before I could even start to pay the debt.”
Iesa looked shocked. “I paid good money to the church in Yartar to take care of—”
“—and they probably did just that. And there were other…orphanages that operated that way in the other wards. But not in the Hive. Not the Gatehouse.” I looked down and closed my eyes trying not to think of the forlorn faces of the children who had no hope. How the children would steal what they could from the younger ones to pay their debt. How I was bullied. How Elisna…
“So…how did you pay it down?”
“At first a lot of very dirty work…scrubbing the rust off of manacles, filthy laundry from the occupants’ cells, cleaning out chamber pots from privies. I never did the risky stuff like go to the Prison and clean the pipes or scour beneath Ragpicker’s Square. A lot of kids didn’t come back from those kinds of things. But once I was a bit older…and braver I…escorted drunks home.”
“You were a—”
“—No! No, no,no,no. I wasn’t a jinkskirt! I just put on a cap, tucked my hair up into it and was a light boy. See, Sigil gets dark, and a lot of the lamps on the streets don’t work in the Hive. So, light boy gangs form up around a kid who has a rod that…provides light. The drunks leaving a bar, would pay the boys to lead them home. But I didn’t need a rod that made light. I just created a light all by myself on whatever I could find. Sometimes, I would cast it on a stick and trade it for coins to other light boys. They’d come back every time it went out. But I made better jink just doing it myself and not sharing. Most light boys need a small gang, so they can keep their light rod. I could create light anytime wanted, so I could give it up if someone wanted to take it. So, scrub during the day, sleep a bit, and then go to the Bottle and Jug and help someone home. Every night, for years. And then I was what, sixteen, seventeen? And I paid it off. And I was free of one cage…only to find I was still in one.
“Now you lost me.”
“Sigil has some nicknames. ‘City of Doors’, is the most common. The other is ‘the Cage.’ Sigil isn’t like Waterdeep; there isn’t a front entrance, or any regular entrance at all. The only way in or out are portals, and they need a key. And that was all I dreamed of; a key to somewhere nice, or at least close to a nice place. All I needed was more jink. But…then the war happened, and things got messy, and then I found myself on the ground on a farm outside of Triboar. So, Iesa. I don’t want to live in another cage; not unless I have a way out.”
“Your father must have been desperate then to put you there.”
I chuckle with little humor or warmth, “I guess. But it never made sense to me. Especially since I know was that he was…was…”
Iesa looked at me concerned and stepped next to me. He placed his hands on the sides of my shoulders. “Was…what?”
“A celestial. An angel.” I said choking on a lump in my throat. I looked Iesa in the eyes. “Aasimars are very rare but they appear in family lines. But it starts with the offspring of a celestial and a mortal; a foundling. I’m a foundling; the start of a new aasimar line. It’s why I look the way I look; aasimar foundlings are…strongly marked.”
“Your hair and eyes.”
I nodded. “The descendants in the line, tend to look just like pretty humans. But celestials aren’t like fiends with their tiefling children. They don’t occur randomly, and the start of a line is never abandoned. The idea that an angel is somehow, couldn’t find a better spot for their own daughter was strange.”
“I guess we both want to punch our fathers.”
“I used to. Now? I just have faith that he is looking out for me, and that he did things for a reason. Why did he make it…impossible to find? When I arrived in the Gatehouse the folks that met my father were bound to secrecy on who he was. many celestials contact and guide their descendants. Mine never has.”
As silent as the grave I thought to myself.
“But he left me in a cage. And I will not be trapped that way again. Its why I hated that deal you made with the Crimson Star; I was basically trapped in Yartar. And, I like this deal even less.”
Iesa didn’t say anything but was ever so slightly nodding. Finally, he said, “Well, I can’t say that I have any faith in my father; what his plan is, or what he thinks of me. I put trust…have faith in my comrades.
“Well that’s a good thing,” Beepu said walking into the hall. “Because I had faith my nose would find something to eat.”
Ieas pulled away from me, and I could feel my face flush like I was caught stealing a piece of bread from the kitchen.
“Did we interrupt something?”
Where once my cheeks were warmed, I now could feel them cool as I stammered, “Wha…no..no…we were only—”
“—Discussing matters of—” Iesa cut in.
“—Faith!” I finished.
Beepu and Daneath looked at each other for a moment, and then at us, and back again before both said:
“Right.”
“So,” Daneath continued while gathering his pack and Beepu doing the same, “Beepu found some food but even better, I spoke to a hunter, and he gave me directions to the path that Ravalan took out of Whitepetal.”
“That will be a help,” Iesa said smiling, picking up his own from the floor. “His footprints should stand out from an elf’s.”
“You think you can track him?” I said a little surprised, as I grabbed our gear.
“Oh sure. I have faith…now.” And smiling, he and Daneath started heading outside to Whitepetal’s center, with Beepu and I trailing.
“I didn’t think it was that inspiring,” I said to Beepu as we walked outside.
“People hear what they want to hear, and then hear what was never said. I guess it might depend how close you were on the topic.”
I looked at Beepu a little shocked, “Not that close.”
“Hmm, I guess it might also apply to talking to oneself. Oh…perhaps you should deal with her.” Beepu pointed and trotted towards the brothers down the bridgeway, heading north.
Confused, I turned and walking towards me with a somber expression was Alanathia.
“You are leaving,” she said simply, but her eyes looked at me with questions unsaid.
“Y-y-yes, we…need to speak to Ravalan, and then…most likely be heading into the High Moor.”
She looked at me with surprise, “I was told to make long term accommodations for you.”
“Ah, well, we haven’t…decided yet. We thought we should…take care of the pressing issues we discussed beforehand,” I said trying to sound normal, while also trying to be very guarded and precise on what I was saying, in case we were overheard.
Alanathia didn’t miss the intent it appeared. She glanced around her before pulling me into an embrace; “We wish you all good fortune in your hunt, may Sahanine Moonbow guide you.” But as she pulled me close she whispered quickly.
“Trust is earned, theirs is in peril, and Ravalan’s safety is in danger,” before backing away, smiling. “Safe journey, Surin’Ha-Celas.”
I smiled and bowed my head politely. I turned and walked with a brisk pace to catch the others.
“How did that go?” Iesa said as I caught up with them.
I smiled and spoke softly, “We were right, and we’d better hurry.”
Session Notes:
The argument was one of the more fun roleplaying aspects, on why we were there doing what we wanted to do. There were little reveals here and there, but this is the first time that we had a disagreement on what to do, and watching I and D go at it was fun. I of course, playing the outsider, had a slightly different view, and I didn't need an insight check to know I did not trust the Kershak.
Also, I am not sure I can do justice on how much of a smartass Paradros sounded. I suppose in some parallel future, where this is a an animated series and has full voice over, then I could do it justice.