Hell's Rebels with GM Zek

Game Master Zektolna

He closed the door purposefully as he wiped his boots on the doormat, exactly twice each, as he had always done as far back as he could remember, before striding across the tile floor with a measured gait. The click of his boots struck out a precise rhythm as he crossed the space in the direction of their rooms at the back of the house. There were no distractions to take his mind off the purpose of his movement, as the house was devoid of any form of decoration or memorabilia. Ivan believed that all of this was just a way to cling to the past or take someone's mind away from important matters. Gregor arrived at his father's door sooner than he would have liked, the only time he wished there was something in the house to take his mind off what he was about to do.

Gregor stopped before the door at the position of attention, tapping his heels together as he locked into place. Gingerly raising his right hand, he gave the door three clipped, precise knocks before resuming the position. The time between the knock and the following response seemed like forever, before a stern voice called from within, "You may enter." The response was the same as it was every time Gregor requested to speak with his father. He opened the door, took two steps in, and resumed the position of attention.

"Sir! Senior Recruit Ward requests permission to speak, Sir!" Gregor stared straight ahead at the back wall of his father's room, not daring to be so bold as to look directly at the man, yet still aware that he sat on the single chair in his room polishing his blade.

The man, grey-haired but not grizzled, with a solid warrior's build, did not look up from his task. He responded, simply and with less formality, "At ease, Recruit, you may speak." Despite Ivan's informal tone, Gregor knew that it was not an invitation for him to drop his bearing.

His breathing started to pick up pace, but he quickly regained control, "Sir, I have come to inform you that I will be..." He stopped to take another calming breath.

"Out with it, Recruit!" The man barks, still yet to look up from his work.

Gregor jumps slightly, before continuing in a rush, "I will be present at the protest at Aria Park today." suddenly adding as an afterthought, "Not in an official capacity... Sir."

This is the point where Ivan actually stops his work on the blade. He folds his polish rag in quarters, and places it precisely on the corner of his end table. The sword, he slides back into its scabbard, before rising to lean it against the wall beside his armor stand. Turning, he moves to stand directly in front of Gregor, looking into his eyes as if trying to find an answer within. "No, you are not. I'm denying your request."

"It's... it's not a request, Sir! I'm off duty. It's my time." Gregor surprises himself with his own defiance.

"What do you think you're going to find there? Are you going to just shrug off your duties and take up the call of the dissident?" His scowl deepens as the pace of his breathing increases.

Gregor breaks his stance, "I'm not looking for anything, nor shirking any duties, Sir." He realizes his break in protocol and returns to his position of 'At Ease', "I was asked by an acquaintance to join them. I thought I should at least understand the concerns of the citizens, Sir."

"The 'concerns of the citizens'? Why do you think we should worry ourselves with the concerns of the citizens? They don't make the laws, they don't issue you your orders, they don't feed or clothe you. Why would you give a damn about what the citizens think?" Ivan stares incredulously at his son, at a loss for Gregor's line of reasoning.

Gregor loses his rigidity, as his shoulders slump, and his tone softens, "Sir... Father, don't you think that maybe Lord-Mayor Thrune might be hurting the city?" He searches desperately for the point he wants to make. "Look at the Proclamations."

Ivan merely stares at his son, a mix of fear and anger dancing in his eyes.

"Proclamation the First and Second, I can understand." Gregor continues in the absence of a response from his father, "Getting rid of vermin, and add an air of loyalty to the Queen, seems like a normal first move. The Third wasn't bad, until I saw my first 'doghousing'. By the time you get to Seventh, they just get unusual. Mint is bad? Since when? How many times have you known one of the guys to chew mint on watch to help stay awake? It's just... well things might be getting out of hand."

Gregor didn't even see the blow coming, Ivan having thrown a right cross, and knocking Gregor to the floor. "Get.. out.. of my house! You sound just like... just like.." Ivan can't bring himself to say the word, turning and drawing the blade he had just put away. He points the end at Gregor. "You get out of my sight, and don't bother returning until you get your head on straight. You hear me? You are not academy educated, you have no noble schooling, nor royal blood. You know nothing about leading a city."

Gregor scrabbles backward as he tries to get to his feet, Ivan keeping pace, his sword point still in his son's face. "How dare you stand in my home, in my room, and try to tell me that you have the right to question our Lord-Mayor, our Officers, and your superiors about how you think Lord Thrune should run this city. Get out!" With that, Ivan stops moving forward, having backed Gregor almost all the way to the front door.

Gregor leans against the door, using the solidity of it to get himself back to his feet. Rubbing his jaw with his right hand, he reaches back with his left to turn the handle. Never taking his eyes off his father, he backs out the door, closing it as he does. Once the door is closed, he just stares at it, lost and confused, uncertain of how his father is blind to the fact that Lord-Mayor Barzillai Thrune may be possibly leading Kintargo down the road to failure.

Still, there was one thing that everyone always needed more of: Scrolls. Scrolls were big business, and while there weren't any lack of wizards to write them the number of applications for spells like Silent Image and Ghost Sound onstage were limitless, not to mention the useful way that a True Strike could allow a stagehand hidden in the wings to throw a dagger perfectly at a target ten times in ten.

So it was that Meliora spent eight hours a day, every day, scribbling her life away on making the low level spell scrolls that were so frequently required to make the magic of the stage truly magic.

Tonight as well she approached hour six of her daily work, having to stand up and stretch after completing her latest scroll: a Vanish spell this time, as she'd heard the Opera House was running low on them. Her face was smudged with ink, and sleepily rubbing at it to try and perk herself up for the home stretch only made it worse. Her hand was cramping, her back ached somewhere between her shoulderblades, and she needed a break.

Clambering out of her window and up a small ladder, she went to the roof to lie down and stretch out. The sky above was full of clouds, the sun still out but the pinks and oranges breaking through showing that it was near sunset. She frowned a little, running over her budget in her head again. If she stayed on plan with her funds, and if she cut back a little on expenses for the rest of the week, she could go see Eliza again after she got paid for this batch of scrolls. The idea of talking for the first time in a couple weeks about something other than business was beyond exciting, since with no cash to do anything interesting Meliora was the sort to stay at home and idle the hours away lost in either thought or the skies above.

Sitting up, she decided to just do the last scroll up here. The lighting was fine, and tonight was a quiet night by Kintargo's standards. With a carefully placed Mage Hand, she pulled both her inks and her papers up to the roof and went to work scribbling down the various arcane formulas for yet another copy of True Strike. As she got bored, on occasion she would also doodle this or that in the margins of the spell--little embellishments that had nothing to do with the spell itself, but she thought gave her scrolls a personal touch and made people want to buy them. A poorly drawn dog here, a thing that looks like a heart there, a stick figure making a gesture at a part of the formula that she was particularly proud of somewhere else, they were a distinction that made her work uniquely hers, and she'd know when someone had used one of her scrolls because those particular bits of writing didn't fade like the magic bits.

Her masterpiece on this particular scroll, though, was a series of unrelated letters interlaced throughout the magical scribblings which, when the magic writing faded, would spell out the phrase 'YOU GOT THIS! BELIEVE!' She hoped that it'd give whoever cast the spell that little bit of extra confidence at just the right time.

The skies were dark and she was having to constantly refresh a Light spell on her quill by the time she was done with this one some two hours and change later. She rolled it up and pushed it into a scroll case alongside the others she'd created before taking a look over the horizon one last time.

The clouds hadn't broken yet, but there was a glow of red coming from somewhere over in Jarvis End. Meliora gave a small, wry smirk as she looked over at it. Of course there was a fire. Thrune'd instated his martial law decree not even last night and already he was proving that he couldn't even keep a building from burning. Just like any politician, this one was all talk too. Idiots, the lot of them. She watched the fire for a bit longer, before heading back inside.

As she did, she added Thrune to her mental list of 'things to complain to Eliza about.' She hadn't been anywhere but her home, The Newt Market, and Jarvis End to sell her wares in a while... she'd listen for some gossip while she was out and see if maybe this time she could properly be impressive when she finally made it to Temple Hill.

After watching the flickering light and the smoke for a while longer, Meliora went back into her room and collapsed facefirst on her bed without even remembering to clear off the smudges she'd gotten all over from her work.

Why bother? She'd have time to clean off tomorrow, after she prepared Prestidigitation and her host of other spells. As she let the exhaustion and the writer's cramp really sink in in the way it only can when a writer finally relaxes, Meliora put herself to sleep by reminding herself that it was all worth it as long as she could hang out with the only person in the world who seemed to give two about how she was doing.

Just like always, it was enough to stave off the crushing loneliness she felt whenever she allowed her mind to wander.

This aspect of her nature was cemented at the age of 12, when she saw a baker beating a street urchin who he caught trying to steal bread. Without a second’s hesitation she jumped out of the moving carriage, racing across the street and hurled the book she was reading at him, breaking the baker’s hand. Her parents had to pay the man for his loss of income due to being unable to bake. The fact that the noble life wouldn’t work out for her should have been obvious from that alone.

Her tendency toward a somewhat….martial outlook, was reinforced the day she watched Rolento Adar, the Thorindal family Man at Arms, take a goose out of the air with an arrow to the eye. It was also the day she made him promise to teach her archery. The former soldier took a shine to the girl, teaching her the secrets of the bow, as well as how to handle herself with a blade, something her mother, Lady Rhiannon supported, making sure their training sessions were scheduled to coincide with her father’s absence.

Through her tumultuous childhood, and blossoming into a bold and outspoken young woman, it was her mother’s constant support, despite it occasionally being in secret, that helped her to grow into the woman she has become, without self-doubt or hatred.

The true rift from her father, and resulting status as a borderline outcast from her family, began on the day she snuck out of a stuffy ball where she and other noble girls were essentially being paraded for the noble sons of importance, and found herself entranced by the new stable girl, Caitlyn, despite the fact that she was up to her knees in filth at the time. The resulting secret relationship between the two, would lead to Arani’s deliberate sabotage of a marriage arrangement that would have notably elevated her family’s status.

Enraged when he found out, her father had poor Caitlyn, beaten and sent off to somewhere in Menador, an act he believed would eventually ”bring his willful daughter to her senses”. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Though she and her father have not spoken since that day, she visits her mother when she knows he won’t be present. She understands that her daughter could not betray herself to marry a man, despite what it would mean for their family, and quietly supports her decision to be true to herself.

However even her mother doesn’t know that she don’s armor and a black veil at night, and prowls the city, preying on the city’s many predators, and doing what she can to help the victimized in her beloved city. She seeks to become the thing that the city’s predators fear most, and decent citizens look to for hope. Hunt those that would prey on the weak, abuse unjust law and make the city’s citizens suffer.

Arani now runs around the city in the guise of The Black Thorn, a veiled, hooded budding urban legend, out to help those in Kingtaro unable to help or protect themselves. Despite all of her complaining she genuinely loves the city, and it is this love in part that drives her nightly, and occasionally nightly patrols. 

Didiana was not given the opportunity before the hand at her throat forced her head under the water. The words spoken to her, the maxim of the Torrent, were an admonishment, not an instruction. The many hellknight orders differed in minor and significant ways, but one thing they all had in common were the so called reckonings. These were mortification rites, such as the Order of the Godclaws’s flagellation, used to focus the mind and temper the spirit. The Torrent’s unique reckoning, however, was less personal ritual and more punishment. Simulated drowning was, after all, difficult to achieve on one’s own.

The hand at her throat was strong, far stronger than her. Didiana knew this despite not having started to struggle yet. She knew she would eventually. Eventually she would run out of air and her panicking body would overcome her will and fight the hellknight holding her down. It was a fight she would lose. This was good. She knew that she deserved her reckoning. Her arms were still at her back. She was not restrained in any way; she forced herself to hold them there for as long as she could, but, sure enough, it wasn’t long before the flesh won over the mind. The hellknight assisting Didiana in her reckoning now felt the armiger’s flailing fingers on him. She was struggling now, desperately and pitifully. They all did eventually. He kept her submerged for a few more seconds, just long enough for her mouth to force itself open and her lungs to taste water. Only then did he pull her up.

“Why did you do it, Drost?”

Retching, wet coughs and frenzied breaths were the only answer he got. He plunged her back underwater. Didiana could not regain control of herself and felt her body fight that much harder in blind panic. It was only scant seconds before she was pulled back up, but the drowning sensation extended these into infinity.

“Why?”

She was given time to answer this time. She was allowed to cough up the accumulated water and find the air to form words. It was both mystifying and frustrating for the hellknight that Didiana chose to remain silent. She merely looked up at him apologetically. He resubmerged the remorseful face with some annoyance.

This process repeated itself a few times until Didiana felt the hellknight’s grip disappear without warning. She didn’t know when, but at some point in her reckoning a second hellknight had entered the room. Her superiors were talking amongst themselves, although she could barely follow them over her own coughing and spluttering.

“Let her go, sir?”

“Yes. The case armiger Drost was assigned to has been closed to satisfaction.”

“Closed? Sir, I have reason to believe that armiger Drost hid the identity of the culprit. However minor the crime...”

“I followed up on the case myself. The theatre director has nothing to fear. The threatening letters came from a scorned actress. He had apparently promised her a certain role, but dismissed her for someone else. I took the liberty to visit her myself. Just a shrew with delusions of grandeur. Harmless to anyone but herself, most likely assisted by drink in writing those letters. The case is closed.”

“I see... But this does not rectify Drost’s behaviour.”

“No. It does not. But there are mitigating circumstances.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the fact that the shrew in question happens to be armiger Drost’s mother.”

Armiger Drost stayed put during this exchange, the only movement from her being the water running from her bright red hair. Despite being dismissed by her superior she hoped that she could continue her reckoning. In her own mind, she deserved it. She was still too soft.

Any influx of joy this should have brought about was for naught, as the Blood Veil quickly swept through the city soon after, robbing her of what was left of her family while her errant father's blood kept the disease from taking her along with them, either a curse or a blessing, she couldn't tell.

Truly alone, she soon fell under the sway of the recently ascended mad queen's false hope and empty promises when the call for able bodied women to serve as protectors was sent out.

Unbeknownst to her she was heading right into the darkest hell she would ever know, and what few could barely imagine, as she was broken in mind and body and soul and reborn entirely in red and gray, a blank tool for the queen. A tool that would never be used.

Soon as her training was nearing completion it came to light that the queen had been slain. And just like that, with all of that training, all of that pain and anger and devotion she was left with nothing but her sisters. All of which were left with nothing, all of it, for nothing. The pain, the torture, the scars, the madness, the darkness, the oblivion they all subjected themselves to. It was all for nothing.

With the help of her sisters in grey and red who weren't as far gone, nor were willing to let any fall further, they pulled her back over the coming months. Although they did their best, and showed her what Good they could do given the right path before them, there was still a darkness lingering deep within Osveta's mind, the armor constantly calling for her, she felt like she was drowning outside of it.

Talking it over with another Maiden like herself who unlike herself had her love to anchor her mind and soul, Osveta, without any safety to cling to outside of her faceless sisters, left the city she had called home her whole life and moved about, ending up in the (at the time) rather peaceful and scenic city of silver that had it's own, not quite so successful history of rebellion. The fact that it existed elsewhere intrigued her though, and so she stayed, trying to find out all that she could on the freedom fighters that once stood against tyrants.

I would first note that we would work on the exact way to incorporate you into the party if you're selected, so that's not something to be concerned about for now.

As for what's happened so far, the story began with a protest at Aria Park. During the protest, Barzillai announced a new proclamation which sparked a riot then proceeded to attempt to quell it by unleashing some of his allies on the crowd.

There are quite a few details of what happens with the party that you wouldn't currently be privy to, but if you happened to be at the protest, you would have made it out, one way or another.

Over the next couple weeks, you would have likely begun to hear rumors about the appearance (or reappearance, depending on who you ask) of a group called the Silver Ravens. They oppose Barzillai Thrune and seem to be trying to undermine him, slowly but surely. You might have heard about them solving a series of murders in the Devil's Nursery involving tooth fairies. You might also have learned about an illicit operation at the Sallix Salt Works that the Silver Ravens disrupted while also freeing some prisoners that were held there. The Silver Ravens have also supposedly interrupted a doghousing (read: torture) of an accused dissident tiefling. They also reportedly managed to disband a gang named the Red Jills.

Lastly, you may have just begun to hear that something big went down beneath Hocum's Fantasmagorium. You don't know all the details, but the Silver Ravens seem to have been involved somehow.

Most of Barzillai's oppression has thus far been through the city's Dottari and the Hellknights of the Order of the Rack. There's also the curfew, but people can generally move freely during the day.