DM Blue_eyed_paladin's page

You have dwelt in the sewers for several years now, eating scraps from rubbish piles and fungi from the walls. For the most part, you have left the sewers unexplored- people more secretive and less friendly than you live in deeper areas, and things better left unsaid dwell deeper.
But all through autumn, people have been disappearing. You have spoken with them one day and found their squats abandoned the next. A heavy chill hangs in the fetid air, and odd noises can be heard from distant tunnels some nights. Your old mentor Kairn is as bitter and abusive as ever, but you have convinced him to move to a more-frequented area, where you think he will be safer.
Whispers that the Hell Squad will be re-formed have haunted the city these last weeks, and you have had an idea. You know the Watch are not paid well (otherwise they would not take bribes so quickly), but they do receive a steady income- perhaps enough to pay one of the indigent houses to take Kairn, and he seems to be getting worse these days.
Then, a miserable rain-soaked day in late autumn, where the water sluices through the pipes and lightning turns the sunless sky bright, a rumour rushes through the undercity- zombies! The walking dead in the marketplace!
Perhaps you can prove yourself useful here…

Your investigations into the dark activities in Refuge have been secretive- a payment here, a favour there, a rumour whispered or stamped out.
However, due to the absolutely dreadful incidents occurring in Refuge recently, rents and taxes have dropped, and pressure is being felt among the Quality to something is done about it.
Popular feeling is that some kind of special group should be formed to combat these problems- after all, the incompetents of the Watch can barely tie their boots without help, let alone deal with the shocking crimes.
You have pushed, pulled, nagged and hinted that such a squad needs someone just like you- young, fresh, and above all capable- to command the new squad. Three months after you began your campaign, on a miserable day in late autumn, as the lightning crashes outside, there is a banging on the door.
The servants admit a man, clad in tattered servants’ livery, who has been savaged- perhaps by claws?- who your servants take aside immediately. He is muttering something about the living dead, and bears a missive with the Mayor’s seal addressed to you, instructing you to report to the House of Parliament, north of the Marketplace.

Something in you has sensed the tide building all through autumn, cresting into a black wave towering over Refuge and threatening to crush down and tear the city apart.
The city is wracked with symptoms of the tide- people are growing desperate and grim. You have heard rumours of something called the Hell Squad, and the tales from five years ago sound nightmarish.
It is now a miserable day in late autumn. You have found yourself wandering, needing to be in the right place, wherever that is, and you find yourself in the marketplace just south of the Parliament House. Sheets of rain pelt the crowded market, and lightning flashes through the sunless sky. Figures shamble, uncaring, unseeing, through the streets.
And then, you feel them. They have no souls- but they are filled with hunger, a dreadful raging hunger which cannot be quenched. They teem through the streets, savaging several surprised people in the marketplace. Screams go up like prayers, and the marketplace surges outwards, leaving only the dead and the undead… and you.

Hafford, gruff inkeep of the Tipping Tankard, frowns at you over your second drink of the day. So far, your questions to the Watch about the Hell Squad have gone unheeded, and your own doubts have not lessened at all. Autumn has been a hard season in Refuge- people are growing grim and desperate, and violent with it.
”The drink is killin’ ye, boy. Ye unnderstan’ how hard i’ is for me to say that’, ye bein’ me most reggeler cust’mer, n’ son o’ me old friend Golar n’ all, but ye must try t’ get’ owt. Perhaps take a stroll o’ the markets?”
As you down your drink, he points to the shuttered window, still leaking rain from the blackened sky outside.
”Best tek’ yer coat, boy. Ye don’ wanna be oot in tha’ w’out another skin o’er ye.”

Autumn has been a hard season for you. Old friends have openly snarled at you, your connections in the Watch have been almost too busy dealing with the dangers already in Refuge to spend money on informants, and some have sneered at you as a snitch. The mood on the streets is grim and desperate. You have heard whispers that the Hell Squad will be re-formed, and you remember hearing how badly that went last time. But then you think that perhaps someone with your knowledge of the city’s underbelly and your skills could be useful to them.
This day is particularly hideous, with hard rain pouring from the black sky and drowning the gutters in several inches of water, as lightning strobes over the city, silhouetting the towers of the northern city.
As you approach the markets, you are bumped hard by a bulky stranger. You wipe your jacket, and you come away covered in mud. The mud smells earthy and rotten, only partially dampened by the rain. Then, you hear screams, and a crown begins to mob past you. You take refuge in a doorway for a moment, and you see the marketplace ahead.

Your temple received a formal request for help from the Watch-Commander regarding the formation of the Hell Squad. It explained that the original Hell Squad only rarely had any knowledge of what they were dealing with, and that, properly armed with knowledge from your temple, the new Hell Squad could avoid many of the dangers and blunders made by the old one.
Naturally, you were selected for your studious application of knowledge in the dark arts. Your relative youth (for a brother of your order) and vitality were noticed as well, and you turned up at Watch-Commander deVere’s office early this morning, clad in the somber robes of your order and carrying your great libris arcanum. You have been waiting most of the day before someone disturbs you looking for him, and then tears off, muttering something about “zombies in the marketplace”. You peer from the window, and you can hear dull screams from the market near the Parliament House, as a mob issues from the exits.

This autumn has been a grim one for you. The worsening weather, the grim feeling among the people of Refuge… and burying your father’s charred body last week.
You have puzzled over what he left you, especially the letter of his dismissal from the Watch. Eventually, you decide to take the things to the Watch-House nearest you, a block away from the marketplace near Parliament House.
This is why, on a truly miserable day, with rain pelting from the sky and lightning crashing overhead, you find yourself waiting in the crowded, noisy, and busy Watch-House. You don’t know anyone, and no-one seems to want to know you, especially when they hear it’s not related to a crime. Your courage almost deserts you, and you almost get up and leave, but you decide to wait a little longer.
Then, screams are heard outside. The Watch pass a series of gruffly yelled conversations, then abandon the Watch-House with alarming speed, rattling in their chain shirts and bearing naked weapons. Again, you hear screams, and this time you can recognize them as having come from the marketplace. Your conscience asks you “what would my father do?”. What indeed, you wonder, glancing once more at the letter of expulsion.