Shackled City Epic: "Vengeance" (story concluded)

Who is your favorite character in "The Shackled City"?

  • Zenna

    Votes: 27 29.7%
  • Mole

    Votes: 17 18.7%
  • Arun

    Votes: 31 34.1%
  • Dannel

    Votes: 10 11.0%
  • Other (note in a post)

    Votes: 6 6.6%


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Chapter 136

“Zenna, what’s wrong?”

Zenna looked up to see Dannel standing in the doorway to the bedroom. The elf was clad only in his breeches, his long hair hanging loosely down across his shoulders, a look of concern on his face. As she wiped away her tears, her sadness was replaced by a burning anger that started as a flame in her gut, but rapidly built to a raging torrent as she pulled herself up, picking up the silver pin as she did so.

“What’s wrong? You bastard!”

She hurled the pin at him, a bit disgruntled when his hand snapped out and caught it smoothly. At the very least she’d hoped for maybe an eye.

Dannel looked down at the object in his hand. “Zenna, please, I can explain...”

“I don’t want to hear your explanation!” she screamed. “What, are you going to try and tell me it was all just a coincidence? That you just happened to be a Harper, that you just happened to be in Cauldron, that you just HAPPENED to ‘run into’ me on the road? Do you think I’m an idiot? No, what am I saying? Of course I’m an idiot, I never suspected anything, just let you LIE to me, SPY on me!”

“Zenna, listen to me! Yes, I admit it, your parents asked me to look after you, but they didn’t send me to spy on you! I was already here on my own business, and they send a request through Esbar...”

“So they knew we were here all along,” she said, her words dripping venom. “So I was just fooling myself, the whole time.”

“Your parents care a great deal about you,” Dannel said. “Your mother—“

Zenna cut him off. “My mother is dead,” she said. “As for my father and his wife, if they’d truly cared, they would have actually been parents, rather than spending all their time running around the west! They would have been there, and my mother might still be alive.”

“Zenna,” Dannel said, his voice firm. “Zenna, I don’t know the entire story, but I do know that your parents—" he emphasized the word, “they are responsible for a great deal of good. With great power often comes a weighty duty to use it in the causes in which one believes.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” Zenna said. “I left because I wanted to live my own life. And I will, without their interference—or anyone else’s.”

The elf stepped closer to her, until less than a pace separated them. “Zenna—I love you.”

She looked up at him, and her eyes were cold. “I may not know much about love, but I do know that it’s based on trust. You lied to me, and that cannot be undone.”

She spun away from him, and took up her breeches from the table, quickly sliding into them.

“Zenna, I’m sorry... I didn’t mean for things to happen this way, but I am not lying about my feelings for you...”

She shoved her feet roughly into her boots, painfully jamming one of her left toes. The feeling was almost welcome to her, nothing compared to the pain she was feeling inside. She took up her scrollcases and a few other things, thrusting them into her pack beside the desk.

Dannel moved around to block her. “Zenna, I’m not going to let you leave until we talk this through. I didn’t fight to bring you back from Bhal-Hamatugn to lose you now.”

She stood before him, and it was a long moment before she lifted her head to face him. “I am not yours to be won or lost,” she said. “I do not want to ever see you again. And if you see my ‘parents’, be sure to tell them the same.”

“Zenna—"

She started toward the door. Dannel moved to block her, but she suddenly issued a string of harsh syllables, and the elf abruptly froze, a look of startlement on his face.

“Goodbye, Dannel,” she said. She did not look at him again as she crossed to the door to the landing, pausing only to settle her magical hat upon her head before departing. On the landing, as the door slammed shut behind her, she stood for a moment, the tears pouring down her face, fighting a wave of grief and regret that threatened to overwhelm her.

But only for a moment. Finally she regained control of herself, fighting back the dark emotions with the hard self-discipline that she’d schooled in herself since she’d been a child, alone and different.

Alone.

Finally, she walked down the stairs, without looking back.
 


Chapter 137

In the city of Cauldron, situated high on the western shoulder of the Alomir Mountains, spring slowly gave way to summer, leaving behind the rough storms and accompanying rains of the annual flood season. Activity along the city’s boulevards, extending in concentric circles around the caldera’s central lake, continued to build, and the sounds of business and trade extended until well in the evenings, when those noises were replaced by circles of light and sound surrounding the city’s numerous inns and taverns.

But the bustle of activity in Cauldron overlaid a growing tension, and stirrings of discontent, among the city’s population of nearly four thousand inhabitants. Rumor and report had merged to give most of the residents of the city at least a partial overview of the tumultuous events of the past two seasons. It had started with the kidnappings, and the ultimate downfall of a slaving ring operating in an abandoned dwarven stronghold under the city. Then there had been the revelation of an evil cult operating in an old ruin within the volcano; while they too had been overcome and scattered, their operations had led to the death of Sarcem Delasharn, the former high priest of the Temple of Helm. These two events would have been bad enough, but then there had been an attack by an umber hulk in one of the mercantile districts of the city. While the beast had been slain, several buildings had been destroyed in the rampage.

It was a time of uncertainty, as the Cauldronites wondered where the next disaster would strike. The administration of the city had taken action, but the results had only further fueled the tensions within the city. Following the umber hulk attack, mayor Navalant had initiated a new tax, a serious levy that had been almost universally reviled almost from its inception by the business interests of the city. The common populace might have accepted it in the name of security, except that the collection of the tax was accompanied by large increases in the numbers of mercenary guardsmen retained by the city to “maintain the peace.” The majority of these new guards were outsiders, mostly tough and grim looking half-orc veterans who were soon marching the streets in numbers. Although there were no serious incidents between this new force and the citizens of the city, the sudden appearance of what amounted to a small army in the streets of Cauldron stirred more than a few resentments among many of the long-time residents of the city.

Clarese Calloran, better known to her friends and the people of Cauldron by her chosen name Mole, understood the reasons for the unsettled air in the city. She’d only lived in Cauldron for a few months now, with a considerable amount of that time spent under or away from the city proper, but as a central participant in many of the recent troubles, she was in a good position to have a particular insight. Furthermore, she’d made it a point to get to know the town, talking to people and exploring the diverse offerings of the place. She’d even spent some time amidst the seedier side of Cauldron, a fact of which her current companions were unaware. Not that anyone who knew her would be surprised, really.

So as Mole sat casually against the frontage of a shop watching the traffic go by, she observed the faces and conversations of the city folk, gauging the sentiments of the people from their behaviors. It was a skill that she was fairly good at, although more often than not she’d still take actions that got her into trouble. To the gnome that wasn’t a problem; if asked she would have said that a life without at least a good dollop of trouble in it would be insufferably dull.

The gnome looked unassuming, sitting there; just a few inches over three feet tall, clad in well-made but unassuming clothes with a light cotton jacket pulled over her torso. A small sword that would have served as a dagger for a human male hung at her hip, but that wasn’t uncommon here on the frontier. Of course, casual observation would not have revealed the magical shirt of mithral links that she wore under her tunic, or the fact that the functional leather boots she wore likewise bore a potent magical enhancement.

Mole felt a flash of annoyance as she looked down the street. Zenna was late for their meeting. It wasn’t so much that she was eager for shopping; in fact, with only about forty gold coins left in her pouch, she doubted that she would be able to find anything worthwhile to buy. Mole was oblivious to the fact that the sum represented more than the average unskilled laborer could reasonably expect to earn in a year; she was used to handling goodly sums of cash now, and considered her current total as placing her on the brink of poverty. The fact that she’d spend several thousand gold pieces in the last few tendays was a matter of little concern to that calculation; tomorrow had always been of more pressing interest than yesterday when the gnome was concerned.

She was still a bit piqued that she’d been unable to buy a replacement for her destroyed magical backpack. Skie, she knew, had had another haversack in her inventory, and when Mole had found out that it had been purchased by one of the Stormblades not two days before they had returned from Bhal-Hamatugn, she’d seethed for the better part of a day. Skie had offered a small bag of holding as an alternative purchase, and Mole had quickly accepted. She’d felt some lingering guilt afterward; the pieces of jewelry she’d sold to buy the bag had technically been “party loot”, found in the private chambers of the kuo-toa high priest Margh-Michto. But the unpleasant sensation quickly faded when Mole had realized that the bag was actually a “party purchase”, since the experience of the haversack had clearly shown that such an item was for the benefit of all. Her conscience mollified, Mole had immediately started buying a variety of useful products to fill her new purchase.

No, she wasn’t upset at Zenna being late because of the shopping, but rather because the crowd of passers-by were increasingly headed in one direction, where something interesting seemed to be developing. That way lay the city hall, she knew, and the faces of the people passing by now seemed increasingly agitated, even outright angry.

She knew what that meant. Trouble.

And she didn’t want to miss it.

She was about to abandon her post when she caught sight of two familiar faces advancing through the crowd. She leapt up onto the bench where she’d been sitting and waved to catch the attention of Arun and Hodge. The two didn’t see her, so she sprang into the street—surprising a young teamster who hadn’t expected to see a gnome manage an eight-foot standing leap—and darted through the crowd toward them.

She made barely a sound as she crossed to where the two dwarves were walking, approaching them undetected from behind.

“Bah, I’m not sayin’ it be a poor weapon, but it ain’t me Betsy,” Hodge was saying.

“Dannel and Zenna both insist that it’s magical, and more effective than your old axe,” Arun said. “I’m sorry that we neglected to bring your old weapon, but we had other matters on our minds at the time, you being dead and all.”

“Bragh!” Hodge snorted.

Mole smiled. This wasn’t a new subject between the two; Hodge was referencing his new waraxe, of late the weapon of Zenith Splintershield that had been used to such devastating effect against them. Davked had not referenced it when they’d returned the mad dwarf to his father, so they’d kept the weapon to replace Hodge’s lost blade.

“Well, if you feel so strongly about it, you can return to Bhal-Hamatugn to recover it,” Arun suggested.

“It just needs a name!” Mole said, enjoying the way Hodge jumped into the air when she appeared suddenly between them.

“Blast, girl! Yer gotta stop sneakin’ up on a man like that!”

“Hey, is it my fault that you pay no heed to your surroundings?” Mole asked.

Hodge’s only reply was a curse in dwarvish that Mole duly noted for future use. “Oh, I know!” she said.

“What now?” Arun asked.

“Marjorie. That’s a great name! I had a cat named Marjorie once.”

Hodge shot a deadly serious look at Arun, and said, in dwarvish, “I imagine that there be a torment in the Hells, where they lock yer in a sealed room with a gaggle o’ chatterin’ gnomes fer all eternity.”

Arun looked back, his expression equally grave, and responded in the same tongue, “I’m not sure I’d wish that on even the worst sinner, friend.”

Mole, for her part, interjected the dwarvish curse that Hodge had just used, accompanied by another juicy one that she’d learned from Lok a few years back. Boy, her mother had been upset when she’d whipped that one out at a family dinner...

“That’s no way fer a lady to be speakin’,” Hodge said.

“I agree completely,” Mole said, with all gravity. “Say, where are we going, anyway?”

“Word is that the town merchants are organizing a protest this morning, in the square in front of the town hall,” Arun said.

“Aye, the not be likin’ those new taxes,” Hodge said. “Nor all them half-orcs that been wanderin’ ‘bout o’ late.”

“Interesting,” Mole replied absently, her attention already distracted by the sight up ahead.

The square before the angular, three-story complex that comprised Cauldron’s town hall was already nearly full of town residents, with several hundred people milling about. As the three adventurers reached the edge of the gathering, they spotted an individual standing on a small platform, haranguing the crowd. The listeners seemed receptive, and as they watched the speaker finished saying something, drawing a number of cheers from his audience.

“Let’s go over there,” Mole said. Before the dwarves could respond, she was gone, blending into the crowd.
 

I know I do not delurk enough and say it, but great story so far LB. This is the Story Hour that has me checking the boards everyday to see if there has been an update.

I look foward to seeing what the winds of fate blow towards the chars, as well as how they handle it.

Thanks again for a great story...
 


Thanks, guys.

While the primary reason for writing this SH is to maintain sanity in my current job, I can say that the kudos and comments from the community here is a great motivator. Writing is often a solitary endeavor, and posting a serial story here has been a great antidote to the limited satisfaction one gets from churning out bureaucratic letters and reports in the workplace. I appreciate both the occasional supportive posts from my lurker-readers and the comments from frequent posters like wolff96, Broccli_Head, Black Bard, Dungannon, and all the others who have posted numerous times here going back to the Travels days. I am glad to have you all along for the ride, and get a great deal of pleasure from being able to share these tales with all of you.

Update tomorrow!

LB
 

Chapter 138

Arun glanced over at Hodge, who shrugged. “We’d better keep an eye on her,” the paladin said. “I don’t like the looks of this, though.”

“Mobs ‘ave a way o’ turnin’ ugly,” the other dwarf replied. “Tho’ this lot ‘as the look o’ a bunch o’ merchies.”

Indeed the dwarf’s assessment seemed true; most of those gathered had the look of merchants or craftsmen, with a smattering of those less well-off scattered into the mix. Overall a rather genteel crowd, but that didn’t reassure Arun as he made his way toward the speaker’s platform. Members of the crowd took one look at him, resplendent in his silvery mithral plate armor, and gave way for him.

The speaker was a well-dressed human male in his forties, with a neatly trimmed beard and piercing brown eyes that held the crowd in their grasp as he spoke. “Friends! Can you not see what is happening here? Our coffers are drained, and our hard-earned bread is going to a ragged band of outlander half-orcs!”

Arun managed not to start as Mole materialized next to him. “His name’s Maavu Arlintal,” she told him.

“Why does that name seem familiar?”

“It was his warehouse that was destroyed by that rampaging umber hulk, that we killed.”

Arun nodded, giving the man a more intensive scrutiny. He seemed to be a skilled speaker, his tone growing more strident as he spoke, and punctuating his words with emotive gestures.

“And I tell you, friends, that the administration of this city is corrupt! Why, I will tell you true, that Alec Tercival, a righteous and holy servant of Helm, has offered a challenge at arms to that dog Tereson Skellerang. Why has this challenge not been publicized? Where is the response of the city leaders to these charges? I think we know where our hard-earned money is going, friends!”

While the crowd roared its approval, Mole glanced up at the dwarves. “Tercival... didn’t Jenya mention him... isn’t he one of their paladins?”

Arun directed her attention back toward the crowd. “Looks like this Maavu character’s provoked a reaction with his words.”

Mole jumped into the air to try and get a look at what the dwarf had seen. A knot of armed guardsmen had issued from the main gate of the town hall, led by a bearded man of middle age in a half-helm and hauberk of heavy chain links reinforced by plate greaves. Behind him were a half-dozen half-orcs, each standing nearly a head taller than most of the people in the crowd. The crowd greeted the latter with a chorus of boos and hisses, but drew back as the guards bullied their way through the gathered townsfolk to the base of the platform.

“Maavu Arlintal, by the authority of Tereson Skellerang, I must place you under arrest!” the guard leader said, his voice determined despite the hostility directed at him by the crowd.

A youth pressed his way forward through the crowd. “Let’s teach these bastards a lesson!” he cried, steel gleaming in his hand as he suddenly drew a knife and thrust at one of the guardsmen from the side.

A roar rose up from the crowd, as the youth’s precipitous action unleashed the gathered fury of the crowd. The sea of protesters surged against the suddenly hard-pressed warriors, who were quickly forced back into a circle. Several were bleeding from wounds sustained in the initial rush; although few of the gathered protestors had weapons, they were quick to hurl small stones, foodstuffs, or whatever else was at hand. The warriors used the butts of their halberds to keep the mob away from them, and a number of protestors were quickly laid out on the cobblestones, stunned and bruised. One stepped into the sweep of a blade as its half-orc user thrust the haft of the weapon into the face of a young man in the tailored jacket of a scribe; both men went down, the scribe’s jaw broken, the other clutching a gash that stretched across his shoulder and cut down to the bone.

The leader of the guardsmen drew out a potion and tried to drink it, only to suffer from a fierce assault from a ring of townsmen that pressed in against him from all sides. One struck the bottle with a brass-weighted cane, shattering it. Several punches struck his body, doing little damage through the armor he wore, but someone managed to strike a glancing blow to the side of his head with a length of wood. Though his helm protected him from a fractured skull, it was clear that the ferocity of the assault had staggered him, and he fought for balance as angry hands clawed at him.

He did not, however, reach for the sword at his hip.

“We best clear out o’ ‘ere,” Hodge began, but as he turned he saw that Arun had already dove forward into the crowd, moving people easily with powerful thrusts of his shield and his weapon-hand. The dwarf sighed and followed. A man waving an improvised club fashioned from a fence-post stepped into his view, and for some reason he identified the dwarf as an enemy, swinging his weapon wildly at him. Hodge caught the blow easily on his shield, and countered with a solid punch from a mailed fist that knocked the attacker into two others nearby, swaying a moment before he slumped to the cobblestones, unconscious.

“Watch who yer jostlin’,” the dwarf said, trying to make out Arun in the chaotic melee. The paladin, of course, had made for the thick of the riot, heading directly for the embattled guards.

Maavu, atop the podium, tried to restore order with shouted admonitions to the crowd, but it was clear that the situation was rapidly growing out of hand. The youth with the knife, along with a few others who had drawn weapons and attacked in the initial surge, had vanished from view, slipping away in the first moments of chaos. The merchant, who was more than he appeared at first glance, realized that he’d been set up; that the situation had been manipulated to his disadvantage. Drawing back, he drew out a scroll from the pouch at his waist, opening the tight parchment roll to reveal the neat lines of runic text within. Without hesitation, the merchant began to read the words of magic scribed upon the scroll.

He could not see the individual who stood behind a narrow window within the slender tower that rose above the Town Hall, who watched the scene with great intensity. Nor could he sense the magic that was worked there, or the brief wrenching of the border between worlds that took place in a tiny room behind the slit, unobserved by anyone.

Except for one person in the crowd, who took note of an odd feeling, glancing up across the square before the roiling of the crowd around her drew her attention back to the immediate scene.

Arun’s voice boomed through the mob as the dwarf reached the edge of the melee between the protestors and the guardsmen. Maddened people drew back from the dwarf, whose magical armor seemed to glow despite the clouds that blocked the afternoon sun in the sky above. Clad head to toe in mithral plate, with a large shield of polished steel and his massive hammer at his waist, the dwarf was clearly not someone to be trifled with. He swept his shield and drove back two men who did not take the hint, continuing their attack on the guards leader, knocking one roughly to the ground and driving the second back far enough for the dwarf to steady the battered guardsman.

“Get your men back!” the dwarf roared, all but carrying the man into the ring of half-orcs. The six had formed a ring of open space, the commoners in the crowd having learned that entering the reach of those halberds was foolish. All six were battered and smeared with hurled foodstuffs and assorted filth, but at least twice as many protesters had taken wounds ranging from minor to serious from hafts and blades, and two men lay on the stones, bleeding and unconscious.

“There’s too many!” shouted one of the guards, and in fact it looked as though a sea of humanity separated them from the security of the Town Hall, sixty paces across the square. A paving stone hurtled out from the crowd, glancing off of a half-orc skull, staggering the unlucky mercenary.

“Back then!” Arun yelled, gesturing toward the end of a row of shops that jutted out into the square along Obsidian Avenue, the nearest wall only twenty paces distant. The guard lieutenant quickly took the hint and directed his men in that direction, driving back the scattered protestors with desultory thrusts of their halberds. One of the mercenaries took up his injured comrade and followed, while Arun warded their rear, blocking the progress of the crowd with his mere presence.

“Why do you aid them?” yelled one of the protestors, a man in his mid-fifties. “They take our coin, and now our blood as well!” The cry was echoed by a dozen others, but they wisely did not move to challenge the dwarf.

“Blood given for blood is never a fair trade,” Arun said simply. He came forward, and the foremost among the crowd drew back slightly in alarm. One of the protestors was pushed roughly aside as Hodge belatedly arrived, and the second dwarf joined his friend.

“Yer crazy, yer know that,” Hodge said.

Arun did not reply, instead bending to touch one of the bleeding men lying on the cobbles. A healing glow issued from his fingertips into the wounded man, who stirred, clutching his head as he groaned.

“Go,” the paladin said. “Go from here, all of you,” he said, louder, to the men and women who watched him in amazement. “There is nothing for you here, now.”

A few of the gathered crowd obeyed, filtering away toward the edges of the swirling mob. The guardsmen had pushed through to the relative shelter of the nearest shop, although objects were still being hurled at them from the crowd, and there were still at least a hundred and fifty people in the square before the Town Hall, hurling invectives as well as objects at the guards warding the main entrance to that structure.

“Yer canna stop all o’ them,” Hodge said.

Arun opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by a cry from the direction of the speaker’s platform behind him.

“Arun! We need you, now!”
 



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