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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Heard" data-source="post: 3187426" data-attributes="member: 7280">Rats in the SewersIt was almost as if they were following her, Janis decided. Since Thaliost they’d been there, every corner she turned, every inn she stayed at. At first she’d considered the possibility that they might be agents of the Prince, but except for the elf the possibility seemed unlikely. Selase was a comfort occasionally, even though her casual sincerity and the random way she interacted with strangers bothered Janis. She was made more plain by the trio from Thrane, paladins, priests, petitioners of that cold usurper religion and king-slayers. So dedicated, so earnest – so certain of their own self-righteousness, a younger, less pragmatic Janis would have been appalled. Janis was no longer young though, and she had become the very soul of pragmatism.And so they found each other, separated, apart, without notice or reason, coming together in the strangest and most unlikely places and finding themselves in common stance upon enemies, and sometimes friends. A cousin in Lessyk, slain while still uttering her chilling proclamations of the power of the Blood of Vol caused the three from Thrane to look sidewise at Selase upon parting, but Janis found the notes of the involvement of other members of her family and destroyed them before the kingsman Daellin could discover. While in Vathirond Janis studied the behavior of the living spells that plague Old Cyre, only to find herself scooped up reluctantly to destroy them before she had completed her studies. It was only bad luck, she supposed, that brought the creature to consume the village in such a way that the culprit was clear; and Janis smiled and nodded as appropriate while seething inside as they watched the last of the arcane essence disappear into the depths of Khyber.Then she found herself in Rekkenmark, asked to come to Rekkenmark, scowling in barely kept contempt and self-inflicted frustration at being so close and able to respond. Sometimes she was tempted to destroy one or another of them, simply to see if their destinies would force her then into the realms of the afterlife to follow them; but she dismissed such angry thoughts with her Cyran meditative chants and struggled back to her center.Janis watched and aided her companions in “locating” the source of the disease, a Jorasco heir named Palanko and the very contact Janis had journeyed to Rekkenmark to talk to. Janis didn’t particularly care for his fetish or his filthy breath, but he had already made the trade of the rat-chewed spellbook when Selase’s message arrived. Now Janis was faced with the prospect of having to slay the very person who had just aided her, and at least part of her rankled at that necessity inside.The ratkin and undead were slain. The rest of her companions were good at that. Instead of joining in though, Janis slipped ahead. Palanko had thought to enlist her aid. He sought to bribe her. He threatened her, and in the end he even dared to equate their circumstance and station. By the time her companions caught up with her, the halfling had gnawed off two fingers on her left hand. That was the one she used to silence him as she battered him with arcane power until the life fell from his eyes as Jarrith’s blade came past her abdomen and skewered him.It had nearly killed her to silence him, and she had perhaps gained even more regard in the eyes of her companions. But did it bring her family back? Did it restore her family honor? Perhaps not, but was it safety and security she was looking for? She was as she was, she thought, watching the skyline of postwar Rekkenmark after the battles. Sometimes she felt as if she were being pressed to change, to adapt; but to what? Her contacts were filth and dying, what would she do if her companions discovered that behind her uneasy smile and unkempt hair Janis Stormhand lacked the empathy and regard for her fellow men that came so easily to them?---------------I'm not certain if this is a too dark vignette really, or if it works? I tossed the "glue" idea, because once I started rolling with it I decided that this way probably doesn't need any glue. It makes it more of a weird, creepy fate thing (at least to Janis) that everyone in the party is always bumping into her. That could be spun into something interesting though, dark and sinister or hopeful and uplifting, or even the simple fact that everyone might actually be following each other for some reason or hidden agenda?</blockquote>

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