Merciel's Rise of the Runelords boardplay

[Harker Crux]

Scars of the Past (Harker)

Harker's first thought was that it was cold.

That percolated around inside his foggy mind for a few minutes before he managed to form a second coherent thought: he wasn't wearing a shirt. His bare back was lying on a cold stone floor.

And a third: He couldn't see a thing.

It was the fourth thought that finally brushed away the cobwebs inside his mind and brought him to full alertness: none of this should be true.

"By the Herald's Acts!" he swore, sitting bolt upright.

His next utterance, as the searing pain in his chest caused by the motion shot through him, would have drawn a week's penance from Father Parris at the temple.

Had he lost a fight? If so, why was he still alive? And if he hadn't lost, where were his companions?

Gingerly, Harker worked his fingers up his chest in the darkness, feeling for where the wound was. With a hiss, he found it -- an open wound, small but bloody, on his chest. No, more than that. Over his heart.

Sitting up had caused the pooled blood to begin to seep down his chest. There was nothing he could do about that. He murmured a prayer to Iomedae for strength and, gritting his teeth, pulled himself to his feet.

The room spun around him. He reached out to brace himself on something, found nothing, and fell -- farther than he expected, landing painfully on his rear.

More oaths unbecoming of a sworn champion of the Herald. He hadn't been lying on the floor at all, but some sort of raised dais.

Harker couldn't even remember most of it, but he knew he had just had a very bad day.

Pulling himself to his feet amid a haze of pain, Harker stumbled around the blackness until his hands stumbled on something wood, not cold stone. A door. He found a handle and pulled. When that pulled some more. Was he a prisoner?

Despair settled in momentarily until he thought to push. The door swung open easily before him. And -- the Herald be praised -- light, from a flickering torch.

He staggered forward into the light and looked down at his chest. What Harker saw brought momentary relief -- the wound was small -- before his joy turned to horror. It was too small to be caused by any weapon. The only possible cause for that pair of tiny lacerations was teeth -- which the LAST thing a man wants to hear when he has just ventured into a dark mountain keep hunting a vampire.

Harker fell to his knees.

"Blessed Iomedae, fill me with your light," he prayed. "I am your servant. In your name I shield the weak from evil. Oh goddess, bring to me that same protection that I might continue to do your will."

Whatever had been done to him was beyond his power to heal -- but at least, as Iomedae granted him awareness of the pulse of evil in his chest, the dark deed done to him this day had not severed him from his goddess. He was not a vampire, not one of the abominable undead -- not, it dawned on him, that an undead would have been nearly incapacitated by pain.

He would need more help than the meager powers of an initiate paladin to bring him back into grace. In the meantime, Harker whispered another prayer, asking the Herald's grace to heal his wounds and restore his strength.

Iomedae's healing powers stopped the bleeding from his chest, but the wound remained -- as Harker had expected. Above his heart was now a pair of discolored purplish scars, marks he was sure would last as long as the evil inside him did. He only hoped he could find a cure for that evil before it consumed him.

Stripped of his shirt, Harker's muscled torso was well in evidence, as were the scars of battles past. He was low in the ranks of Iomedae's paladins, weaker in power than stripling boys half a decade his junior. But Harker, for all his relatively advanced age of 28, was still strong and fit. His time in the libraries, scorned by so many other holy warriors, had not kept him from the practice yard.

Behind him, he saw something that surprised him -- his breastplate, shield, and hammer, neatly piled on a table by the door to the stone dais room.

The paladin was not naive enough to assume that the presence of his items showed his goddess's hand at work. In the dark places of the world, it was far more likely to be a sinister force acting. But there was no trace of evil on his equipment, so Harker would not turn the gift aside no matter the nature of the giver.

Buckling on his armor and hefting his weapon, Harker turned toward the door. He had come into this keep to bring the light and found only darkness. But the darkness would not claim him -- and goddess willing, he would encounter some of the vampire's servants on his way out, so he could leave a little less darkness in his wake.

[Harker Crux]

Scars of the Past, part 2 (Harker)

"Sir Crux? You may come with me, now."

Hiding his irritation at the delay behind a smooth expression, Harker rose, feeling oddly naked without his usual armor and shield. Or without his trusted warhammer, for that matter. All he had for his defense was his faith and a dagger at his belt. The former was far more useful than the latter.

But, different tools for different tasks. He was no longer in the field, exterminating zombies or smashing ghouls. When one ventures into a private library, one follows the decorum expected by the library's owner.

Not that Harker expected to find anything here. He'd spent a year in the libraries of Absalom, the center of the world, and failed to turn up anything but hints and rumors. Why would this provincial city offer him better luck?

Harker had no choice. His research was not a passing fancy, to be discarded in favor of more important things. It was the MOST important thing. His very soul depended on it.

The obsequious servant directed the Iomedan through an ornately carved door into the councilman's library. By more civilized standards, it was a petty thing -- just over 100 books, many of them poetry and fiction. It would have been pitiful not only in Absalom but even in his long-ago homeland of Brevoy, hardly an oasis of civilization. But here in Varisia, on the edge of civilization, the councilman's collection was nothing to sneer at.

Certainly not for Harker -- small though the collection might be, it had a copy of Westion's "Survey of Darkness." That book was rare indeed, and most copies that did exist were from Derrid's abridgment. Derrid was a pious man, fervent in his devotion to both knowledge and Iomedae -- but he lived in the years of the First Mendevian cruasde, and wrote and edited with an an eye towards demons.

Not the undead.

By reducing Westion's grand tome to something that could fit comfortably in a pack, Derrid gave countless crusaders the guide they needed to fighting demons by the Worldwound. But he also cut out exactly what Harker needed -- a lexicon of the undead, their weaknesses, and, most importantly, their powers.

Without a better understanding of what was afflicting him, Harker would never be free of it.

It had been two years since the Ustalav castle. Two years since the events Harker still couldn't remember while awake -- but events he couldn't escape when he slept.

The wound in his chest was still as fresh as the day he had suffered it, a pair of virulent unhealed scars from where the vampire's teeth had bit above his heart. Harker had managed to escape that nameless castle and return to the church, as far as he knew the only survivor of his holy expedition.

His report was bad, but the report Father Yvestri gave him was worse.

"It's a bad thing, Harker," the Iomedan priest told him, after examining the wound, consulting his books and praying for enlightenment. "You now bear a curse -- and a dark one."

A throat cleared. Not Father Yvestri -- that was the past. The councilman's servant. Harker stirred himself from his reverie to focus on the man.

"Ya?"

"Sir Crux, the councilman has instructed me to remain here while you work. You may begin at any time," the man said.

"Very vell," Harker said, his lips as always struggling to form the unusual consonants of the Taldane tongue.

It had taken him three weeks to persuade the councilman to allow him access to his library, and even now the Iomedan was apparently not trusted alone with the Magnamaran's books. So be it.

He scanned the shelf, searching for the text. With only fivescore books it didn't take long, and soon Harker was trying to suppress his excitement. The report had been true! Magnamar DID have an unabridged Westion.

With reverence, Harker pulled it off the shelf and took it to the table in the center of the room, where an oil lantern flickered. Delicately, he removed his writing case from his pack, opening the padded box to retrieve the inkwell, quill and parchment. He would only have access to the book for a few hours -- until the servant or the master grew tired of him -- and he would have to take detailed notes.

He opened the cover. It gave the characteristic creak of the ancient book. The title page itself was thrilling: "Survey of Darkness: A guide to defeating the forces of evil, by Salvar Westion, Priest of Irori, Absalom."

Well, thrilling depended on your perspective. In Harker's case, thrilling meant no sixth line reading, "Edited by Tor Derrid, Servant of the Herald in Westcrown."

The paladin reached into his pack again, taking out the small case containing his precious spectacles. Other men who, like Harker, often waded into combat clad in armor, might have bridled at wearing the metal-framed lenses, but the paladin did not mind. He was as much home in libraries as on the battlefield, and the reading glasses were a tool for reading as much as a shield was a tool for fighting.

Hours passed. Harker filled sheet after sheet with his neat, level script as he flipped through Westion's book, trying to mask his growing despair.

Finally, Harker slumped back in the chair, raising his glasses to rub his eyes. All that work. All that searching. For naught.

Derrid was a greater man than Harker had given him credit for. Oh, he had condensed Westion's magnum opus and eliminated many of the Iroran's entries on the living dead.

He had also slashed Westion's turgid prose into concise entries. And, Harker could now say with certainty after having read the older work, Derrid had added research of his own.

Much of Westion's fabled work was little more than anecdotes, rumors, folk stories and since-discredited theories. Of definite interest to scholars, certainly -- Harker would make a note to return later, when (not if!) he had more leisure to focus on general studies -- but of minimal practical use compared to Derrid's handbook.

And of minimal practical use for a man bearing a vampire's curse.

Harker felt an urge to slam the book shut, but his reverence for the ancient tome rose to the fore. He closed the book carefully and replaced it on the shelf.

"Did Sir Crux find what he needed?" the servant asked. "The councilman is curious."

Harker, weary, turned to face the man, still standing at ease by the door.

"No, I did not," he said, his Hallit accent strong as always when he spoke the common tongue. "It vas a … most fascinating book. But it did not have my answers."

The servant's formal tone softened, slightly.

"The councilman is most regretful," he said. "May I inquire as to where you will go next?"

Harker eyed the man, uncertain as to why the servant was interested. Politics, he supposed -- the councilman would undoubtedly like to know if Harker went to any of his rivals for assistance. Or, less charitably, perhaps, the councilman was anxious to see the paladin turn his gaze away from his own dealings.

But he had nothing to hide and nothing to fear. The truth was part of Harker's armor, not chains binding him.

"I have no certain leads," he said. "But I sink I vill stay in Varisia and explore some of ze ancient ruins in zis land. Perhaps my answers lie here."

"How fascinating," the servant said -- or perhaps more than a servant. "Just the other day, I heard a report down from Sandpoint, to the north -- some adventurers there uncovered ancient catacombs under the town."

"Sandpoint?" Harker weighed what he knew of the town. Small, rural -- and, if he recalled, recently assaulted by goblins.

The servant nodded.

"Zat sounds as good as any of my options," the paladin said, eventually. "I believe I vill go to Sandpoint."

[Thaldis]

Reading by Candlelight

They were not the first dead bodies that Thaldis had seen. Indeed, for an auditor -- even one of Jeggare’s -- he had encountered well more than his share of death. There had been the Shoanti slaves in the trees of Sanos Forest; the butcher in Sothis; the Bonuwat sailor, clutching his stomach, who across those many years remained a fixture of his nightmares. But these were the first bodies that could so easily have been his own. The dwarf, especially, his headless corpse slumped where Thaldis had stood only a moment earlier. Could he really have been the agent of his own survival? Had it been his swiftness, his sensitivity to the flow of battle, that had kept him alive? Yes, he thought. It had. And yet...

And yet if he listened carefully he could just hear the Fates casting their dice. He felt his chest tighten. All his skill was a mere droplet in an ocean of randomness. He needed something to protect him.

Thaldis pushed this thought aside. Before him -- surrounding him -- were the Thassilonian runes that he and his partners had copied over the past weeks, along with the translations that Quink had given them. It was not that Thaldis did not trust Quink; it was that he did not respect him. He looked as if his mind might go at any moment. Perhaps it already had. On several occasions he had seen the old man puttering about the lighthouse near dawn, with his compass and diopter and other arcane instruments. The mere sight of the elderly had always stirred in Thaldis a kind of resentment. He could hardly bear relying upon them for their cleverness. So it was settled: he would learn Thassilonian himself.

The language was not entirely alien to him; as it was the common ancestor of Varisian and Shoanti, he knew much of the lexicon and was familiar with its grammar. He had nearly understood the message spoken by the ghostly figure under Thistletop. The runes, however, were a puzzle. There were hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, and no one had any use for them anymore. Like most modern languages, Varisian and Shoanti were written in alphabets derived from the Jistka and Azlanti systems. These days one only ever saw a Thassilonian rune on the thigh of a Varisian dancer.

At the naval academy in Kintargo Thaldis had enjoyed success in two subjects particularly: languages and mathematics. Deciphering the runes, he found, required a little of both. Some of them consisted of a single logogram; others a logogram and a inflectional marker. With the grammar and translations at hand, it had been a simple enough task to construct a glossary of the runes -- a few nights’ work while waiting out the goblins at Thistletop, mostly. Now he worked at isolating the inflectional elements. The runes they had collected were not a large enough corpus for him to decipher the system entirely, but it was a start. And it was exactly the sort of careful tedium that he found so thrilling.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught Shayliss making her way west through the empty market square. Suddenly he was seized by fear: had Ameiko told her of this apartment? He ducked his head and spied at her over the windowsill. Had she seen him already by the candlelight? No -- she kept her western heading, her skirts gathered in her hands, her eyes scouring the ground for puddles.

Thaldis returned to his work with great satisfaction. Keeping one’s own schedule, he thought to himself, was really the most civilized thing of all.

[Paxon]

Apples - Jjem'jabir

"An apple," I answered, I thought, quite plainly.

"Beg your pardon?"

I glanced up from the rune-scattered and yellowed pages of the ancient tome that was perched on the table before me, the valued work profanely lit by the beer-soaked torches nestled within their scones. Her porcine face was confused and scrunched, her blue eyes dim.

Does she not have ears? I wondered, and must have mirrored her own look of befuddlement such that the two of us simply stared at one another with nary a mote of understanding.

"I'm sorry, what would you like to eat?", she repeated, slowly, as though I had not heard her the first time or were some half-wit foreigner.

"An apple," I repeated, in her same condescending tone, a half-mutter really and turned turned back to my study of the Thassilonian script. Just another boring treatise written some long-dead and want-for-talent scribes; lovers caught in a quarrel, family houses in turmoil, the maudlin sort of tropes that humans were so consumed with.

"Is that all?" the harpy asked, "Nothing else? We've some excell--"

"Just... an apple," I sighed and cut the wench off and carefully turned a page of the weathered book. I hardly ate much anyway and I did not wish to risk any chance of beer or sauce staining one of Quink's precious Thassilonian artifacts for fear of the noose. That was the problem with the man, even the junk was valuable to him. A fire could take half his attic and woe, the world would be like to lose nothing but the luminary insights into the petty squabbles of millennia-dead politicians. When he died, probably heirless, I might make a pretty fortune selling off the worthless things to a few sages that Quink corresponded with.

In short order, the duly requested apple appeared on a small, freshly cleaned plate along with a pairing knife. I nodded absently and plucked up the apple, holding it against my cheek as I continued to read.

PONTIFAX: Does not the Starling, alight in sun-lit gossamer and blazing metals, eat both the vile grub and the sweet nectar? That a bird such as that can forage so wide, is this not evidence of the ignorance of the Gods - if there be such - to allow so beautiful a creature to consume to the lowest and most base sustenance.

Not exactly the Ancient Wisdom of the Thassilonians that Quink was so desperately searching for. Still, Quink paid good money for summaries of the works that he could not hope to have the time to decipher on his own. If nothing else, Quink at least noted his own approaching mortality. So very few humans were capable of such things - or elves, for that matter. That, by itself, endeared me to odd, little man.

I sunk my claws into the flesh of the apple and took a large, satisfying bite. Meanwhile, I scratched a few notes into the journal in my lap: "Trite. Melodrama. Second rate. Heretical musings. Recommend to sell." Although I knew Quink never would.

I could sense the serving woman hovering nearby and, when she failed to leave, I closed the book and placed the rended apple back upon the tray.

"Your hands.." the woman sputtered. I glanced down to them and turned them over and nodded, somewhat surprised that so daft a woman would have noticed. I could hardly handle the ancient book now, with so much sugared juice on them. Quink would have likely cut my pay in half, for that.

"A napkin, yes. That would be much appreciated."

[Paxon]

Dawn - Curondir

In the distance I could see Father Zantus approaching, tired and wearing a robe soiled from a recent-night's sleep. He held aloft a lantern despite the fact that slim fingers of dawn were beginning to rake at the fading stars above. The harsh light served to make him look older than he was, whatever that was. I always had a hard time knowing how old humans were. One year they were young and spry, the next stooped and bearded or dead. This early morning, he looked old. Forty perhaps? Eighty? I never remembered.

From the whites of his eyes, I suspected he was not pleased. A moment later, he confirmed my suspicions.

"What is the meaning of this!" Zantus bellowed, waving his walking stick about at the corpses I had assembled earlier under the passages of the stars. Had the ravens arrived yet, he would have scattered them. "Is this.. a mockery? We've had ghouls and murders and... and... what is this?"

"It's what I said it was when we talked. Yesterday," I said, as though we had not already discussed dividing up the consecration of the dead the evening before. It probably came off a little condescending. It probably was.

"This! This is your help?" he shook his head and muttered and raised his sleeve to cover his mouth and nose from the putrefying scent that lingered in the air. Most faiths used salts or some sort of incense to disguise the smell of decay, seeking to ignore mortality in the same very moment they attempt to acknowledge it. Not mine.

"They'll no more rise than if you had bathed them in lavender, scrubbed away the viscera and flushed the blood. I assure you that. It may not look pretty, but neither was their deaths," I answered with a roll of my shoulders and knelt besides one of the once-ghouls-once-farmers. His eyes glazed skyward. They were brown and likely would be the first things the carrion birds would ravage.

"Bloody fanatics," Zantus muttered, sighed as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders and rubbed his eyes as he shook and mumbled something to himself which I could not hear. I half thought the man might collapse. Just as well, I thought, what's one more corpse? "Ghouls and murders and fanatics now. Desna save us all. If any of the townfolk should see this they'll likely take you for part of the evils of late. And, after seeing this, I'm not sure I'd disagree."

"I am hardly fanatical," I smirked and rested an elbow on my knee as I looked up to the bewildered and still flustered priest. "But... your characterization is a common one. There are very few of us who serve the Rose. While every faith calls upon its followers to sometimes risk their lives, I'll admit that very few do it with Milani's vigor."

Zantus seemed to have calmed by now and, with a grimace, glanced down to one of the naked corpses - a woman, a body that was brutally ripped from clavicle to pelvis by what must have been a mortal wound. It was the half-orc's strike that ended her existence for the second time.

"How long will this take? The sooner this is done with, the better," he waved his cane at the bodies, "Woe if some miller's wife comes upon this farcical scene."

"I've already honeyed the bodies and spread enough of their entrails through the underbrush that I suspect a few sharks might beach themselves for this feast," the cleric did not look happy with that answer, so I summarized, "Not long. It'd be quicker if those men hadn't holed up the goblins. Still, ravens and wolves will do the job ably enough. In any event. It doesn't matter, the rites are over, the souls are gone and what happens now is of no concern."

Zantus huffed at that, and looked at me seriously, like a judge talking to a madman, his cane a gavel, "You should be concerned. You'd be hung dead in half the civilized lands for this."

I laughed and my eyes smiled as I shielded the now-crested sun to look at him and the first of the flies began to swarm around us.

"That's rather the point, isn't it?"

[Thaldis]

Reading by Candlelight, Part 2

The tax-collector’s spellbook had been dragged along with him into the depths below Thistletop, but he had left a small collection of notes behind, scattered about his room at the Rusty Dragon. Having decoded the Thassilonian runes to his satisfaction, Thaldis now took to studying the late mage’s cramped, miserly scrawl. A dull ache spread from his brow to his temples. No matter how he held the pages, the light from his lamp was not equal to the task.

In the heat of battle, Thaldis had forgotten the Thassilonian medallion. Perhaps its magic would have helped -- but perhaps it would have only made things worse. If he hadn’t fallen at just that moment... In any case it was clear that Tsuto’s ring would not suffice -- and the meager leathers he wore already taxed him too greatly. So he studied the mage’s notes, in search of some protective spell that the mage himself had left unused.

The fight with Alergast had spooked him. It wasn’t just that he had nearly died, although that had not escaped his notice. He was collecting enemies. Alergast had come for him, specifically, and indicated that Aldern would do the same. This puzzled Thaldis. Alergast, he supposed, resented him and his companions for not letting him die. Fair enough, and easily remedied. But they had done nothing to Aldern. Someone had turned him against them. That made three enemies in little more than a month -- four, counting Tsuto. And, as always, lingering at the back of his mind, there was Jeggare.

***

The Jeggare Company was the hand that fed the Chelish empire, what little remained of it. It gathered resources from around Golarion -- Korvosan silver, Taldorian iron, Mwangi slaves -- and shoveled them into the markets of Egorian, Westcrown, and Kintargo with military efficiency. The tower-and-swords of House Jeggare was a familiar sight in any port on the Inner Sea.

The Jeggare Company’s long reach often came at the expense of control. Shirking, graft, and embezzlement imposed significant costs on the company’s operations. Local offices were typically given only skeleton crews -- a shipping agent, a procurer, a handful of assistants. Larger ports like Absalom received additional staff, but they were never enough to ensure that the deals they made were being honored fully. So when the company governors in Egorian noticed irregularities in a local office’s books, they assigned a special auditor to investigate the matter.

Thaldis began work in 4692, at the age of sixteen, as an assistant to the special auditor Corremin in Sothis. In the winter of 4700, he received a promotion of sorts: he was named the third special auditor of Varisia. To fill the rest of hours, he was also given the duties of the shipping agent for Sandpoint. In fact he was the company’s sole representative in Sandpoint. Procurement was directed from the Magnimar office, and Thaldis returned the funds allotted for hiring an assistant, citing a lack of qualified candidates.

Late in the summer of 4708, Thaldis received a task in his capacity as special auditor. The reason the Sandpoint office needed only half an employee was that the Jeggare Company wanted only two things from Sandpoint. The first was Scarnetti’s lumber. The second was Shoanti slaves, smuggled through Lonjiku’s tunnels and into the holds of the great ships the lumber necessitated. As to the lumber, the company’s governors were generally satisfied. For the last six months, however, they had been paying for more slaves than they received.

The trader from whom they purchased the slaves, a fat Sczarni named Isigro, was intractable. He led Thaldis to a pen at the edge of the camp. A ledger in the adjacent wagon contained a table of symbols that Thaldis did not recognize.

“Heights and weights,” Isigro explained in Varisian. “And dates. You see? Nine men, six women. Nine men, six women. Each month it is the same, just as your devil-masters have ordered. So they can keep their assassins south of the bay.”

Lonjiku was similarly insistent: six men, six women, each month since Calistril. Thaldis did not trust Lonjiku, but he trusted him more than he trusted the Sczarni. Once the slaves reached Lonjiku, he had nowhere to put them except on a Jeggare ship. He couldn’t sell them, and he certainly had no interest in freeing them. Isigro, on the other hand, could have purchased three fewer male slaves and pocketed the difference. And his underlings might have felt less sanguine than he about the peculiar Chelish institution -- or about shepherding fifteen Shoanti several miles in the dead of night. And, of course, the Sczarni could always be bribed.

Finding the truth was just a matter of patience. Lonjiku was eager to prove his innocence, and he knew when the Sczarni would make their next delivery. So when Isigro’s nephew left camp with the Shoanti near midnight on the 18th of Rova, Thaldis was watching; and he was watching when, navigating a deer trail, the caravan halted to meet a pair of riders approaching from a nearby farm. Thaldis stopped and took his bearings. As the riders made their way back across the fields with three of the male slaves, he realized that his investigation could progress no further.

These woods marked the northeast boundary of the Deverin lands. The farmhouse whence the riders came, and where they now returned, was occupied by Moryl Whiteacre, sister of Amos Deverin, widowed nine years before Thaldis’s arrival in Sandpoint. The farm hadn’t been active for several years before that. She had no need for slaves; she was buying their freedom.

The Sczarni were selling the slaves twice, whether Isigro knew it or not. That was the information that the governors had tasked Thaldis with finding. They would kill Isigro’s nephew -- perhaps cut the Sczarni out entirely. But Thaldis could not make his report to the governors. The Chelish slaves had surrendered their freedom via crime or contract, such was the law of the land. Perhaps the same was true among the Shoanti. But there were no slaves in Sandpoint, nor in any other part of Varisia within Magnimar’s reach. He might forgive himself for turning a blind eye, but he could not turn a man over to be killed -- not for this.

Such were the thoughts that Thaldis wished to remember, but there had been others as well. The Magnimar office procured the slaves, and Lonjiku’s men got them aboard the ships. Thaldis’s hands were clean, for the time being. And if Moryl Whiteacre and her sons knew of the slaves being smuggled through Sandpoint, could there be any doubt that Kendra Deverin knew as well? If she was content to ignore it for now, a few deaths would change that in short order -- even Sczarni deaths.

Thaldis wrote to the board of governors the next day. In lieu of his report, he submitted his resignation.

***

That was more than a month ago, and still he’d received no sign from Egorian nor even from Magnimar. The Jeggare Company office in Sandpoint stood empty. It was possible that the second auditor had arrived without his notice -- but with all of Sandpoint as his eyes and ears, and Isigro’s clan as well, it was not likely. Even the Bastards of Erebus, having shown up at his doorstep, had not bothered to come inside to seek him out.

Lonjiku’s death had put an end to the Company’s supply of Shoanti slaves. Would they suspect Thaldis of having some part in it? Perhaps, with only Scarnetti’s lumber to draw them, the Company would withdraw from Sandpoint altogether. Thaldis quickly dismissed that idea. If Scarnetti were in danger of losing his biggest customer, he would get them all the slaves they needed. Even with the tunnels walled off, he would find a way.

Finally Thaldis’s mind returned to a more certain threat. Aldern had been a sycophant, a fool -- Thaldis thought that he had even shown signs of cretinism. The notes Thaldis had before him contained instructions for creating a magical spark. It was inconceivable that Aldern could grasp even this basic material, let alone summon a small army of ghouls. How could this simpering idiot have assembled such a force? Who could have given it to him? Who ever would?

And suddenly it struck him: Lucrecia.

[Harker Crux]

Scars of the Past, part 3 (Harker)

Harker stared in momentary shock as the spear pierced Kurtz's armor, rib cage and protruded a good two feed out of his back.

The tough half-orc fell to his knees and then to the ground, the light of life already beginning to fade from his eyes. Before him, the giant half-woman, half-snake smiled cruelly and yanked her spear out of Kurtz's chest.

It had been Harker's insistence that the adventurers ascend this final floor, to engage the powerful creature who taunted them with her loud, disdainful voice. Powerful and evil, he knew that before she broke her invisibility with the deadly attack on the mercenary. But, he had assumed, not powerful and evil enough to resist his strength of faith and his party's strength of arms. It would be a glorious fight -- but one in which right was victorious in the end. Iomedae saw to her servants.

Now, as the illusory demon Lucrecia had summoned winked out of existence, Harker felt the first moment of doubt. But enough. Doubt was a tool of darkness, used to separate him from his faith.

Lifting his cold iron warhammer high into the air, Harker prayed. It was a short, familiar prayer -- a battle prayer, one Harker had used a hundred times before.

"Herald, help me to destroy your foe!" he cried, and let the bliss of his goddess's touch briefly suffuse him. As her power filled his soul, so too did it erupt around him, light blazing from his eyes and limning his hammer with a soft glow.

Alone, this fiend might be too much. But Harker was no longer alone.

He charged forward, across the top of the enormous clock tower, and swung his glowing hammer at the woman's torso.

"Iomedae!" he bellowed, a defiant challenge.

But with serpentine grace she slid aside, leaving the only sign of his weapon's passage the glowing motes in the air.

"Will have you soon enough," Lucrecia retorted, snidely. She turned away from Kurtz's mangled body -- still alive, Harker noted with a rush of hope -- to face the paladin. He did not fear. Clad in his plate mail, the paladin lifted his steel shield, ready for her swift strike.

But again she moved with a speed greater than he expected. The darting spear pierced his side, then before he could react the snake-woman withdrew it and stabled him again, through the thigh.

The third time, moving more by instinct than reaction, Harker managed to interpose his shield and deflect the spear past him.

It was barely enough. Another strike, certainly two, and he would be finished, no better than Kurtz.

Kurtz, who lay dying. Harker, sorely wounded. The woman, unharmed -- and, it seemed, going to be very difficult to harm.

His certainty faded. The glowing white light around his eyes and hammer flickered. Thaldis, amiable coward that he was, had been right to fear the creature on the roof.

But it was not in Harker's soul to be uncertain. As quickly as his confidence in victory faded, a new kind of certainty kindled within him. His goddess's warmth closed in around him again, and Harker knew what he must do.

"She is beyond us!" he roared, back at Thaldis, the Shoanti ranger Taleek, and the elven cleric Curondir. "Run for your lives. I vill stall her!"

Even as he yelled, Harker felt the twinge over his heart. The twinge where his curse rested. In sacrificing himself, Harker was not hastening himself to his goddess's welcoming arms -- but condemning his soul to darkness. To filth, and depravity. He had searched half the world, but would meet his doom before finding a cure.

The Shoanti did not need to be told twice. Harker saw an arrow fly past his head -- and past Lucrecia, over the edge of the Clock Tower and into the night. Moments later, even as a second arrow shot harmlessly past the snake-woman, he heard the clattering of soft boots descending the stairs.

The Milani cleric was made of sterner stuff. Curondir strode forward, not back, and spoke in a calm voice.

"Harker, it was folly to come up here -- partly my own," Curondir said. "There is little that you will do other than needlessly die."

Underneath the paladin's grim visage, a look of hesitation crept in. Someone must die, but must it be Harker? The question only lingered for a moment before he cast it away in disgust. Such a thought was unworthy and he would have to do penance, were he going to live. Worry over his own soul was the height of selfishness.

Harker made no immediate reply as he darted aside, dodging a feint from the woman.

Curondir reached Harker's side, his morning star in hand.

"You go," the elf insisted. "We are made to be martyrs among my church. Yours is to fight another day."

To the hells with this temptation! Harker's weaknesses roared up inside him, waging against his determined faith. It was all he could do to stammer.

"No, I…"

Lucrecia would not leave the two godly men to sort out their theological dilemma.

"Oh, look at the martyrs," she cooed, voice dripping with venom. "How sweet of you to try to save each other. Don't quarrel, please. I'll take you both. I'll take you *all.*"

His voice full of the calm that had deserted Harker, Curondir continued.

"No matter, Harker. The saints of Milani are reborn, and will die again."

Behind them, Harker heard Thaldis flee down the stairs. Lucrecia hissed with annoyance, but the cleric and paladin blocked her path.

The imminence of death had gifted the elven cleric with a serenity he had not always shown.

"This is unlikely to work, but so be it," he muttered, followed by a swift prayer.

Harker felt the rush of divine power, but nothing happened except for Lucrecia's laughter. Curondir sighed.

"Run, Harker!" he ordered, and to his shame Harker obeyed.

He clattered down the stairs in his armor, leaving behind the martyr cleric and the dying Kurtz. Tears streamed down his eyes as behind him he heard Curondir's slow, measured voice.

"So, is this going to be a slow or quick death?"

"Herald forgive me… I am veak," Harker murmured as he fled.

Behind him, the screams arose.

-----

All the emotions of that dreadful, shameful night flashed into Harker's mind as Thaldis came back with his report.

"Xanesha is here," the slight man said quietly, gesturing to the stairs.

"Was she speaking to someone?" inquired Owl Dreamer.

"She was slaughtering the lizards," Thaldis replied.

It had not been very long since the debacle on the Clock Tower, since Harker let his own fear of his curse get the better of him. Now, he would have a second chance.

But a second chance to do what? Last time, the woman known alternately as Lucrecia or Xanesha had effortlessly defeated what Thaldis named the Sandpoint Investigative Company.

True, all of them had become deadlier in that intervening month, skills honed in battle against fearsome ogres. And they had new allies to replace Lucrecia's victims. Owl Dreamer, the Shoanti shaman, surprisingly different from the savage Taleek. Orn, the eccentric wizard. And Paxon, a giant of a man, bound in armor and bearing both a huge sword and a dark past.

"Can ve afford to leave her at large in our rear?" Harker asked, his mind still trying to decide the right course of action. "Perhaps fighting ze lizards has weakened her. Perhaps now is ze time to strike?"

Thaldis, never eager for a fair fight, rubbed his forehead. Above them lay the remaining Kreeg ogres, any one of them capable of felling a strong warrior with a single blow. Below, the fiend -- perhaps thousands of years old -- who had orchestrated the fall of Fort Rannick at the hands of Jaagrath's brutes.

Which was the more pressing danger? Harker knew the answer at once, but still he hesitated.

"Let us see if we can determine her strength," Thaldis suggested, and Harker nodded at once.

Moving to the top of the stairs, Harker prayed to Iomedae for insight, and was rewarded at once with the unmistakable awareness of nearby evil. Below, and moving away, in the brief moment of illumination. Strong -- and yet, not as strong as he feared.

As always, the brush with an evil soul repulsed Harker. But the fear he had expected to feel was not there. He had been overconfident before, Harker knew -- but this did not feel like a darkness that was beyond him now.

He related his findings to the rest of the group.

"If she is the goal, we should hunt her now," Owl Dreamer said. "Otherwise, we may lose her into the wild."

The shaman's agreement stiffened Harker's resolve.

"She poses more danger to ze world hen all of ze ogres combined," he said, firmly.

Thaldis worked his own spell, his eyes growing distant for a moment.

"I sense multiple magical auras," the investigator said. "One strong. Others weaker."

Harker had sensed only the one evil. Magic items, perhaps. But not other ogres.

"She is heading into the tunnels, I presume," Thaldis continued.

His soul was set. Now, he was certain, was the time to avenge his fallen companions -- and his own shame.

"Let us prepare and go, zhen," Harker said firmly.

Thaldis sighed.

"I trust I needn't remind you what happened the last time I acceded to this suggestion," he said.

"Let us hope you are not proven right again," Harker retorted grimly.

The air filled with the sounds of chanting as Owl Dreamer and Orn worked their magics, bolstering the party for the fight ahead. Harker welcomed the touch of the strange divinity. Erastil was no enemy of Iomedae, and today they worked towards similar ends.

As the incantations died down, Harker hefted his shield and strode to the front. He had been the last to flee the last time he faced Lucrecia. Today he would be the first to meet her.

The serpent-woman was waiting for them in the twisted tunnels, so narrow the adventurers had to travel in single file. As Harker turned the corner she met him with a blast of flame from a wand -- but it merely scorched him, and Harker ignored the wound in his fervor.

Praying again to open his soul to Iomedae's grace, Harker advanced in a defensive posture. It was not enough, as the wicked spear once again pierced Harker's armor. It was a foul weapon, and he felt its darkness sap at his faith as it tore through his flesh. No matter.

His companions swarmed around the woman as Orn worked his magics again, causing the world to seem to slow down around them. Paxon seized an opening and cut a large gash in Lucrecia's serpentine coils when she tried to cast a spell, breaking her concentration -- and then paid for it as the dark woman stabbed at him as if his armor was paper. The final blow pierced the knight through the guts, a brutal wound, and he fell to his knees.

The woman laughed, all the more terrible for its melodiousness, and prepared to finish Paxon off. It was Kurtz all over again and Harker would not permit it.

"No!" he bellowed, his mind beseeching an unspoken prayer. Again he felt the grace touch his soul, the warm glow of divinity -- followed by a sharp pain and the rush of blood. Lucrecia's spear stabbed through the prone knight, but it was Harker's body that took the wound.

It was a gruesome wound, but one he would happily bear. He was strong in Iomedae.

"Herald, restore me!" he beseeched, and laid his hand on his wounds. A healing touch, and his vigor returned. His goddess's purity shone through him, and with righteous fury Harker set on Lucrecia with his glowing hammer.

Unlike on the clock tower, he did not now miss. Once, twice, half a dozen times he beat the villainess, as Taleek's arrows flew overhead to also sink in. The ranger's arrows drew blood, but it was the glowing radiance around Harker's hammer that seared Lucrecia's flesh and drew howls of protest.

"Your time menacing ze world is at an end, demon," he stated, coldly.

"Even if I die here, it won't be for long," she snapped, and struck back back at her tormentor -- her avenger with a flurry of stabs. Two blows drew blood, but Harker was beyond fear and pain.

"Death claims us all in ze end," he said. There was a sense of longing in his soul that surged up despite himself, desperation to be free of his curse and to join Iomedae's in the afterlife. "Ze wicked, just as much as ze righteous."

Insensate to the blood dripping down his shining plate mail, Harker healed the worst of his wounds again and pushed his assault.

"A valiant attempt, but Iomedae's wrath vill see to you," Harker snapped, and then pushed forward. The radiant hammer drove Lucrecia back against the wall with a few near misses before catching her square across the skull.

She slumped to the floor, the dark spear slipping from her hands.

Harker could not, for a moment, believe it. Before, his faith had shattered. Today, nothing could stand against it.

He dropped to one knee and clasped a fist to his chest, over his heart, where the two unhealed puncture wounds still seeped.

"Praise Iomedae," he murmured. "I am yours."

[Thaldis]

The Liar

Brynia was not a perfect specimen. She had a tall forehead, and her eyeteeth drove their medial neighbors inward behind the fores, giving her a bucktoothed appearance. But she was hale and fit, with a pleasant face and hair of a warm straw color, and as Thaldis drank he became keenly interested in seeing her breasts. As time wore on he began to find her teeth rather endearing.

"What a lovely charm," Thaldis said, referring to the simple jasper pendant she wore, as she brought him another cup of beer. He lifted it gently from her chest and drew it closer for inspection. Brynia blushed and cast her eyes at the ceiling. "It reminds me of a piece I once saw on a councilman's wife in Sothis."

"Oh," Brynia said quietly. She was not a natural skeptic, least of all when it came to compliments. She paused uncertainly. "Have you seen Sothis?"

"Yes. More than I cared to." He smiled faintly and let go of the pendant. Brynia straightened but did not move away. "Perhaps I can tell you of it later, when there are fewer guests to see to."

"Yes, I'd like that," Brynia nodded. "You'll be staying for dinner, then?"

"I expect so," Thaldis said agreeably. Brynia stood a moment longer and then hurried off with her skirts in her hands.

As Thaldis returned to his reading, a familiar and utterly round figure hobbled out of the rain into the Bottoms Up. Thaldis squinted through the tavern's dim light.

"Isigro?" he called. The man looked up and gave an emphatic, wobbling nod. "What are you doing here?"

"Eh..." Isigro adopted a sour expression. "I think I don't tell you that. But, heard you were in town. Wanted to see how you and your friends fared."

"Isigro," Thaldis said with a slow smile as the Sczarni lowered himself into a chair, "that was *your* job. Remember? You were to look out for my friends."

"Eh, yes, I remember." Isigro's accent seemed to thicken each time Thaldis saw him. "You don't worry about that. The Bastards did not return. But, meant your other friends -- this company of yours. Heard you killed five score of ogre on Hook's Mountain. If I had known you would do this, would have been much afraid when you came for me." He gave a wheezing laugh.

"It was shy of two score," Thaldis said with a dubious look. "And I am a poor fighter, as you surely know. The others did most of that work."

Isigro shrugged, perhaps mildly disappointed, and went quiet for a moment. "This rain, eh? It is not a good rain. It gives me an ill feeling." He grabbed his belly with both hands and shook it for emphasis.

"You realize that we may be sitting on the rainiest spot in all Avistan," Thaldis said with a wry smile. "I know of no place that sees less of the Sun than west Varisia. Even the summers have a chill." Isigro's slackened jaw and pinched brow betrayed a profound sense of unfairness. "But I agree. I wish I knew what to make of it." Thaldis took a sip of his beer and glanced down at his papers. "When we arrived yesterday, I overheard some people talking about Eolana, the seeress. She is your niece, yes?"

"Eh, yes." He nodded slowly.

"It sounded as though she passed through here recently. I would like to speak with her, if she's still nearby."

Isigro frowned. "Why you want to speak?"

"Because, Isigro," Thaldis laughed, "every minute that I don't spend speaking with Eolana is one that I might spend thinking about what you are doing here in Turtleback Ferry."

***

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Master Valedost. I've heard quite a bit about you these past few months. Don't worry -- I assume it is mostly fables." Eolana was much prettier than he had hoped. She had a heart-shaped face, with a delicate mouth and big violet eyes that seemed almost to glow. "I understand that you did my uncle a favor. As much as I love him, you must know that does not reflect very well on you."

"Yes," Thaldis said, kissing her hand with a smile. "You may think of it instead as a favor to your cousin. But I will get to the point. You say that you have heard of our work?"

"Yes," she said uncertainly. "The troubles in Sandpoint -- ghouls and goblins, that sort of thing?"

"It is bigger than that now. Something...historical. Do you know of the Runelords of Thassilon?"

Eolana shook her head. "Only dimly. Master Valedost, I think I know why you asked me here." She paused and laced her hands together. "I can't join you."

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said with a frown. "May I ask why?"

She smiled knowingly. "Master Valedost, let us not kid ourselves -- you are a cad." Behind the bar, Brynia dropped a glass.

Thaldis smiled uncertainly and watched Eolana's eyes. "You have a low opinion of yourself if you think I called you here just to sleep with you."

"There are at least two ways of looking at that, I think," Eolana said with a smile. "But it is not only that. You have a predatory soul. Your eyes," she paused, laughing. "Even now, you are searching for a checkmate."

"Whatever you think of me," he paused and placed his hands on the table as if it were a piano. "Many people will die if we fail. You need only look at this town to see that. You could be a great help to us."

"Many people will die if I am not there to heal them when my caravan passes through their village."

"That is not what I am talking about, Eolana. Violent deaths, on a massive scale -- you must have heard what happened to the Gallowed."

"But you are not listening." She shook her head. "Why would I trust you?"

With a frown, lips parted to speak, he searched her eyes. "Because you remind me of someone," he said finally.

"Yes?" she laughed. "And there is more?"

"There is," he nodded. "But you should see it for yourself."

"As you wish." She gave him an odd look and reached into her satchel for a deck of cards. She sorted through them with practiced movements, laying nine face-down before him. "Choose one."

Thaldis placed his hand on the fourth card from the left and drew it toward him before picking it up. It showed a lamia with a bouquet of roses.

"'The Liar,'" he read aloud. He handed it back to Eolana and she shuffled it into the deck, along with the others he hadn't chosen. Then she drew nine cards, in three sets of three, and laid them in columns running toward him. One by one she turned over the cards in the left column.

-- a demon feeding on the souls of the damned: "The Fiend";

-- a wounded man among the ghosts of his comrades: "The Survivor";

-- a king mourning before a grave: "The Empty Throne."

Eolana sat in silence and stared at the cards. She took a deep breath. "Yes -- I see now. I am sorry." She reached across the table and took his hand. "Liseia -- was that her name?"

***

"So there aren't any operas in Sothis?"

"Not since the empire fell." Thaldis placed a hand between his head and the pillow. "No one in Garund ever really took to it. The Calistrians have bought up most of the old houses. Or so I've heard." Brynia laughed.

"Who did that girl remind you of? The one you were talking to earlier?" she asked after a moment of silence.

"Hm?" Thaldis frowned sleepily. "Oh -- my sister."

"I didn't know you had a sister," she said in a teasing tone. "Do I remind you of her?"

"No," he shook his head. "Of course not."

"I suppose it wouldn't make much sense," she said quietly.

He turned toward her and touched her face, then drew the covers down off of her. "Go on -- I want you to dance for me."