As soon as the Queen is visible, Thaven takes a knee, his eyes downcast. When the Queen offers to allow them to serve, he smiles. "My Queen, I will serve unto my death and beyond, if I may. I am at your disposal."
If you expected the Queen to be surprised by your suggestion, you would be disappointed. At your mention of a collection of trustworthy citizens into a new force, she simply smiles knowingly.
"I'm glad you bring such a thing up. I have, in fact, already begun the creation of such a force, with the help of my bodyguard Sabina. Such things take time, however, and will not be done in time to resolve the issues at hand. You, however, have already shown a propensity for heroism, and heroism is what Korvosa needs now. Your dedication to justice, Goffred, is admirable. Beyond that, I've heard rumours that you all brought Gaedren Lamm to justice? Even I have heard of his villainy, and am glad that he walks the streets no more.
My capacity for praise is nearing its limit - inform Sabina of your decision regarding the Guard. And please, take this, with compliments of the Crimson Throne. I grow weary, and must retire to my chambers. Grief is heavy on the heart, as I'm sure you know."
She pauses on her way out to listen to Goffred's eulogy. She gives a small smile, and says "That was...oddly...well said."
Queen Arabasti gestures to Sabina, who takes a small silver chest from a table near the throne and advances towards you while The Queen stands up, gathers her dresses, and gracefully walks away down a hallway, presumably to her quarters. Her footsteps click and echo on the stone floor.
Sabina reaches you with the chest, and silently opens it to show you the contents. Inside are fifteen gold bars, each stamped with the Korvosan royal seal.
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As Goffred directed, Nostrum leaves him to do most of the talking. At the question of joining the guard, he give a simple and definitive "Yes." During the Eulogy, Nostrum cannot resist also paying his respects. Although he does not know the words that his companion prepared, he softly hums harmonies underneath it.
He continues to hum a little while after Goffred finishes, and is therefore totally unprepared for the queen's gift. Normally so talkative, he merely stands with his jaw hanging open at the solid gold before him. It is more gold than he has ever seen in one place before. He is somewhat surprised, and almost suspicious that the queen would be giving such gold so freely.
Akiki nods curtly, "I will serve your guard as I am able," she says quietly.
Raijinn nods to the Queen, surprising himself by saying "It would be an honour to serve."
What did he know about enforcing the law, or even helping those in need? Raijinn frowned, wondering if he was just getting himself into a position to at least die with honour.
As the Queen leaves, Thaven stands and nods to Sabina. "We are ready to leave whenever you are, sir."
Sabina looks just about ready to leave herself, and in fact begins to nod at Thaven's statement..right up until he reaches the word 'sir'. A quick look of amusement crosses her face before she finishes nodding and begins walking towards the door.
Seeing anybody waiting around instead of promptly following her, she turns to say "Well? Are you coming or are you coming?"
On the walk back to the castle entrance, she speaks quickly and curtly. "Should you wish it, I can arrange an escort for you through the city to Castle Volshenyek, also serving as a guide just in case you do not know how to get there. If not, please report there soon as help is needed desperately. The guard is spread thin. And whatever you do, be careful out in the streets. It may have sounded quiet this morning, but quiet is the last thing it was. Unrest still clouds the minds of many Korvosans, and there are many that...oppose The Queen's rightful rule. They will not like that they saw you come right out of the Castle proper."
You have reached the exit. Sabina reaches out her hand to quickly shake each of your hands before ordering two guards to open the castle gate and bring the group outside, back into the waiting room.
"It was good to meet you. I am glad you are willing to work for us, you are sure to be an asset. Now, I must return to the Queen's side, for that is my place."
At the conclusion of the walk, she turns on a heel and marches right back into the castle, back straight and gait perfectly even.
Akiki did not like her brush with royalty. It makes her feel odd, and though she's signed up for this new job because the rows of shiny gold (also more than she'd ever seen before) muddled her thought processes, now she wonders about the wisdom of that decision, standing outside in the sun again. She flutters around this thought for a bit until she realizes her lack of worry is more to do with her friends (they're friends now, right?) being with her, than anything else.
Its an odd, new idea. Akiki is used to being on her own.
In the end, she just shrugs, "I think we can handle ourselves." That would be the point of this whole new appointment, right?
"Indeed we can," says Fredo. "The Citadel is not hard to find." It would not have been hard to find even if he had never been there before: it dominates the Jeggare estuary and is easily visible from the top of the Grand Mastaba. His thoughts, however, are not on their route, but on the Queen's plans. He had dismissed her as a fool - clearly that is wrong. She is canny, and more than a little mercurial. He will have to keep an ear open to learn more about this new force she plans to organize, what its purpose is, how it will relate to the people. Sabina, at least, is simple. She is more than a Royalist - her loyalty seems to be to the person of Ileosa herself, even above the Monarchy. He had been wrong about her too. She should not be among the people. She could definitely keep from getting lynched, but that was not the kind of propaganda they needed.
"Before we report, however," he says to the others when Sabina had gone, "we should probably disburden ourselves of some of this extraneous stuff. The result of our...encounter with Lamm is already known, but if we are to be representing the law it might be better not to be totally weighed down with the spoils of vigilantism."
Raijinn agreed with the others. "The guard is spread thin enough, please, do not waste any men on our account."
Turning to Fredo, he continued, saying "Representing the law or not, we are certainly burdened. We must travel light, and make haste. If what the Queen says is so, countless lives are in danger."
Emerging back into the waiting room, you see a guard with a table heaped in the weapons you'd turned over to him. He recognizes you and allows you to take your things back as you leave.
Thaven belts on his sword and slings his bow and arrows. "I agree with Raijinn. Let us make haste."
An haste shall be made!
The group sets out from Castle Korvosa at once, their arrival from the inside drawing strange looks from the other people in the waiting room - most of them will not get to see the Queen in person.
Descending the Ramp back into the city, the group makes haste to the nearest market to rid themselves of extraneous things. Even though it is mid-afternoon, the once crowded markets and the once-rowdy streets are now eerily empty, with only a few people in the streets hurrying to their next destinations.
One of these people, a man dressed in very fine clothing, hurries in the opposite direction as you, although he is several blocks ahead. As he crosses an intersection, he is suddenly overtaken by a group of half a dozen angry commoners, armed with shovels, chair-legs, and lengths of iron piping. Even from this distance you can hear their angry shouts of "Queen's man!" and "Betcha never worked a day in your life, dandy!" as they knock the noble to the ground.
A Korvosan Guardsman or Hellknight is nowhere to be seen.
As usual, Akiki's initial reaction is mixed. She doesn't think it's a good idea to perpetuate the violence in the city... But she doesn't really disagree with the notion if knocking down some nobles a peg or two.
Still, her feet move despite herself, hurrying that way without any idea of what she's going to do when she gets there.
Thaven frowns. This mob mentality, this utter hatred of those above their station is foreign to him, raised as he was on duty and honor. He unslings his bow and moves toward the crowd, stopping about twenty feet away. He calls out in a loud voice.
"For shame! Shame on the people of Korvosa, if this is how we treat our fellow Korvosans! Has this man harmed you? Has he stolen bread from your mouths? You who work for your living, have you no pride in that work that you must berate those who were born with more? I was born and raised in this city and I was taught that we honor our city by honoring our fellow men. Shame on you, Korvosa, if you have forgotten such simple ways!"
Thaven will stand with his bow down, an arrow nocked and ready, in case anyone takes a threatening step toward the nobleman.
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Nostrum steps forward boldly to picks up where Thaven stops.
"Good people... are you not good people? If this man does bear any crime against you, then he can face a judge in this world or the next, and every debt shall be repaid. But what you are doing is a crime against him and a crime against yourself, and if you continue it too will be repaid."
All this while, Nostrum is walking towards the crowd and trying to make eye contact with individuals. He does not yet draw his weapon lest they mistake his words as an intimidation tactic or a threat.
"More to the point, Brothers," says Goffred, shaking his head a little at his companions' naive appeals. They really should know better than to appeal to patriotism when the laborers see that the upper classes' only concern for them is how much they can be squeezed. They should really know better than to invoke individual responsibility when this is clearly a manifestation of social tension and class anger. "What do you think you can expect to get from this pissant? A few pieces of silver each? Who is he to you? Far better," he says, striding purposefully to the edge of the crowd, "to go to your bosses and demand something from them. Show them your unity and your will, and they'll have to give you more, immediately and over the course of your working lives, than you can take from this man's purse." Fredo has an eager, excited look on his face, and seems to be reveling in the opportunity to try and move masses of people in the direction he wants them to go.
Raijinn stands back with his arms folded, waiting for his companions to wrap up with the locals. He does not see the point in getting involved in this. The lower classes are clearly frustrated, as they have every right to be. And the nobility will be frightened, as they should be. Raijinn thought back to Lamm, and decided that the world might run smoother if those in control were more respectful of those who weren't.
At the arrival of the newcomers, the small mob looks up as one.
A corpulent man who seems to be their leader is nearly mid-swing with his iron piping when Thaven interrupts him. At Thaven's mention of "honor", the man scoffs, and opens his mouth to reply when Nostrum continues the appeal. The mob's hostile stances relax at his implications of damnation, and there is a bit of muttering.
Goffred's words, however, really tip the scales. The man in the lead just starts to look more and more angry as the trio speaks,and throws down his pipe and storms away at the culmination of Goffred's speech without a word. The five men who were following him mutter a bit between themselves, look between the group and the noble on the ground, look around for the Korvosan Guard, and then similarly throw down their improvised weapons and sheepishly slink away.
There are a few mumbled apologies and furtive looks as the five men try to be as nonchalant as they can about just walking away.
The young nobleman stands up, brushes himself off, and then approaches you. "Ah, yes. Hi. Can't thank you enough for that, they would've crushed me for sure! Anyhow, I'd really like to..um, get home."
He rifles around in his pockets for a moments, and comes up with a fistful of coins.
"Please take this, it's all I've got on me..I don't know where I'd be if it wasn't for you, but now I know I'm gonna be going home."
The road now once again clear for your route to Citadel Volshenyek, the group continues their walk.
Akiki seems relieved for her companions' eloquent tongues, and her hand is visible relaxing off of her knife. She remains pale and silent, elven features stoic and trying not to display how distressing this is to her. She has often cursed the aristocracy, and those who have always had money when she never did - but now they are all rich, and somehow it doesn't sit well with her while the city suffers. She has always told herself that as soon as she had money, she would get hr family out ... But now she finds that thought gone, and the uneasiness about the state of Korvosa driving her. The problem is, as her fingers slip off of the pommel of her knife, she has no idea what to do.
She slips towards the back of the group again as they continue on.
"Hmph," grunts Fredo, watching the laborers take their leave. He had hoped, even expected, that they would stay together. That they do not disappoints him, but it also confirms the analysis he had given back on Lancet Street: the rioters need leadership and organization as much as righteous outrage. From what Fredo's seen, it's too late to build such an infrastructure now, but perhaps not too late for the next wave of discontent.
For now, though, there is a noble to deal with. Being the closest, Fredo takes the money and begins sharing it out, one platinum for each of his friends. "That's a good idea," he says when the noble mentions getting home. "Stick to the main streets, they're more likely to be guarded. And turn out your pockets to show that they're empty." Fredo dumps the remaining smaller coins into his own purse, which is already considerably heavier than it had been this morning. "What are you doing out anyway?" he asks, a little incredulously. "The riots started last night. If you were home, what possessed you to leave? If not, what kept you from making it back earlier than now?"
The noble looks down to the ground as he answers, "When the riots started, I was...not at home. Actually, I was with my teacher, Master Orisini. I saw smoke in the skies and I was too afraid to leave, and I knew that Master Orisini would protect me if rioters came to his Academy...so I stayed there. I only dared to leave today, as I thought it was calm."
Vencarlo Orisini's academy is a pretty well-known local dueling school, run by a well-liked, and aging swordsman named Vencarlo Orisini.
"I guess I was wrong, but at least there was you around to save me from the mob."
"You should get back to safety," Akiki says, glancing about nervously.
"What did you think I was doing? I'm going home!" The noble rushes off with a final small bow and a final muttered thank you, coattails snapping in the wind.
"You know, I think we may have offended him," says Fredo nonchalantly as Amin retreats down the street and out of earshot. "Not that I'd prize his esteem much. On top of being a noble, he seems a bit dim. He'd have to be either dim or desperate to leave the company of one of our age's finest swordsmen in a situation like this. That he failed to learn enough to defend himself against an untrained man wielding a shovel suggests the former." He closes his eyes and shakes his head. "Come on," he says. "The Citadel's this way."
Thaven watches the noble leave, not much caring that the man was noble or not. He was a Korvosan, which meant that he was under the protection of a Sable Company Marine. Thaven's face briefly betrays embarrassment, but then he sets his jaw and moves along, his bow out, just in case.
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"I've never heard of this Academy, so I'm unsurprised that he wasn't very skilled. Lacked discipline, I'm sure, although with the amount of money he handed us I'm surprised he lacked a sword." Nostrum had spent long hours training with the weapon of his deity, mostly on logs that needed chopping.
As the group proceeded on, Nostrum pays attention lest any more make-shift gangs are wandering around.
The remainder of your walk goes uneventfully as you make your way to the Citadel in Midland.
Citadel Volshenyek's imposing height and girth overlooks Jeggare Harbor, where is serves as the barracks and castle for the Korvosan Guard, and as a means of water defense with its many siege engines lined up on the walls facing the water. Very few guards can be seen manning the walls, and only one mans the gates instead of the typical two.
As you approach, the guard at the gates snaps to the attention, noting five armed individuals. He calls out "Declare your purpose for visiting Citadel Volshenyek!" as you draw near.
Akiki scowls a bit at being yelled at, but she figures such is the climate of the city at the moment. She wonders about going into the citadel willingly (its a place she's tried to stay out of) but remains small and skulks in the back of the group, peering around Goff who is, as far as she's concerned, now their spokesman.
Fredo would have been happy to let one of the others take the lead for once. He knows this is where they have to be, for the people's sake, but his memories of this place are not fond ones. He can't help but wonder if they will be partnered with the Sergeant who had interrogated him six years ago, who had told him so callously of Aleko's death. Still, he feels Akiki's eyes upon him, and he knows what she and the others must expect from him. "We are here to offer our services to the Guard, Brother," he says, projecting his voice but keeping it calm, and spreading his arms wide and facing his empty palms to the sky.
"The Queen said she would send word of our coming to Field Marshal Kroft," he adds, a little reluctantly. The lofty titles taste ashy in his mouth. The guard, however, looks very much on edge, and invoking his boss might keep them from getting shot. "Can you check with her?"
"Field Marshal...oh, the Queen! Yes, of course, you're expected."
In a short time, the gate is opened, a one tired-looking guard runs up to escort you to the Field Marshal.
As you enter the Yard, you can't help but notice how sparsely manned the Citadel is. It's on the absolute skeleton crew. Apparently any reserve guards will be in the city, working to keep the peace.
In a short order, you're escorted into the central keep, and the gates are pulled shut behind you. The guard walks you through the castle until you come to a stout wooden door. "The Field Marshal's office.", he says, and opens it for you. Within the room is a beautiful, red-headed woman dressed in a warrior's crimson armor.
"Ah, so you are the ones Queen Ileosa told me to expect?"
"Yes, sir. We were sent by the Queen to aid you in any way we may." Thaven stands at attention, waiting to be told to stand at ease, or really, awaiting whatever command this officer wishes to give.
"Any way, yes," says Fredo, looking the Field Marshal in the eye. His hands are clasped behind his back and his feet are planted wide apart on the flagstone floor. "Though personally I'd prefer to be out on the streets rather than tucked into an unmanned post somewhere out of the way. Ah," he says, remembering something important. "Did Ileosa tell you who was who? I'm Goffred, and this is Akiki, Nostrum, Raijin, and Thaven," he says, waving at each in turn.
Raijinn nods to the guard when Fredo mentions his name, still somewhat unsure about what he's doing here.
"Good, she says, We'll have need of your...talents to help resolve this unrest. You've seen the state of things, I'm sure, better than I have. You will have been out on the streets, of course. Korvosa is tearing itself apart, and every bit of help we can get to keep that from happening is well-appreciated."
Nodding at Goffred's introductions, Field Marshal Kroft takes each of your hands, in turn, in a strong handshake. "Well met, all of you. If you're willing, I'd very much like to retain your services as agents of the Guard. There is much to be done to keep order in the city, and we are short on hands to do it. You will, of course, be well-compensated for your services.
So...will you work with us?"
"Of course we will," says Fredo, raising an eyebrow. After Ileosa's and Amin's rewards, Cressida's mention of further payment is just embarrassing. "Was that not clear? Just tell us where we're needed."
Replying to Goffred with a slight smile on her face, she says "Ah, yes it was, I just did not want to presume to send you to work without your express agreement that you wished to work for me."
Akiki just nods, shifting uncomfortably in the background, just waiting to have an assignment.
"Aye sir! Awaiting orders, sir!" Thaven remains at attention.
"I'm relieved to have your help, for I have need of you now.
Korvosa is in enough trouble as it is without its defenders abandoning it. The Guard needs every man to combat this unrest, and yet dozens of us have abandoned their posts. Many of these desertions are at least somewhat understandable, with family men wishing to return home to be with their wives and children. Some men, however, simply are taking advantage of the situation for their own benefit.
One such man is Verik Vancaskerkin, a Watch Sergeant of the Guard who defected a few days ago. It would be fairly okay if it was just him, but he's managed to convince a few of his fellow guards to defect along with him, and I'm afraid that such defections will spread like an infection.
Now, I don't want to expose other guards to him because he might influence them poorly, nor do I want a particularly patriotic guard to simply kill him outright. I need him arrested, alive, by impartial, skilled talent. People like you.
I would prefer him caught alive, along with the men he's defected with, but if you can't do that, I would accept corpses of them. They brought it upon themselves when they chose their paths. You will, of course, be paid quite well, and I can provide you with places to eat and sleep. You may room here, at the Citadel, or I can provide you with a line of credit to a tavern nearby. I would like you to get started soon, but I appreciate the need for rest.
Remember, I would prefer Verik alive. If you bring him to me alive, he's worth a thousand gold to me. Dead, and he's only worth half.
Do you have any objections to this mission?"
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Since the party had reached the citadel, Nostrum had been trying to emulate Thaven's stance and mannerisms. He was starting to get the hang of the salute, but still did not fully grasp soldier etiquette. He listened patiently to their orders, but for lack of a better option, raised his hand at the end.
"I don't object, but I do have a few questions, ma'am.... erm, sir. Firstly, what has he defected to? Have he and his companions aligned themselves with some other group or are they merely failing to do their duty?" From his understanding of Cheliax, Nostrum is sure that the Hellknights wouldn't take a group of deserters in with open arms. "Secondly, I believe everyone capable of repentance and redemption. Although I don't believe it likely, how will you treat this man if he does return to his post?" Nostrum stares pointedly at his new commanding officer.
"Indeed, it would be helpful to know what Vancaskerkin and his men are doing, and where to find them," says Fredo dubiously. Going only by what Cressida's said, Fredo does suspect he'll have something to object to about this mission. What does "taking advantage of the situation for their own benefit" mean? Is Vancaskerkin looking to profit off the unrest? Is he trying to gather followers for a private army? Is he simply looting, taking advantage of his uniform and training to do so with impunity? Or is he trying to help people on his own, outside the hierarchy of the Guard? Maybe Nostrum's right and he's been won over by some other group with its own goals.
Raijinn looked stern, but was relieved that he was being tasked with doing something that he would gladly have done anyway. The idea of someone else having power over him, and telling him what to do, left him uneasy, but he knew that Korvosa needed them, so he had put those feelings aside. And, it seemed, he had been rewarded for his faith.
"This man has no honour." Raijinn began. "We will remind him of the oath he swore, and of his duty. He will come back, one way or another."