"Yes, you can," Ortik says after surveying the victims, both dead and dying. "Or, rather, I am here to help you. I need to speak with your head priest urgently." He gestures for the priest to come close, whispering in his ear.
"The cure. I have it."
Demitri picks up his scared daughter. "I know sweetie. But I'm okay. So is everyone else. Let's get you something to eat." He replies carrying her to the kitchen to fix her a sandwich. He then fixes an extra one before looking back down to Nadia. "Why don't you bring this to Karri? It might cheer her up."
The priest's eyes brighten considerably when you tell him you have the cure. "Oh, praise be to Sarenrae--come! Come quickly!" He turns on his heel and starts walking off to a pair of doors across the courtyard.
Opening the doors reveals a small indoor chapel, free of plague victims. A blonde man is kneeling before an intricately carved statue of Sarenrae. His priestly vestments are of more ornate make than the priest who led you here. "Father Giles? We have a cure!"
Nadia takes the extra sandwich and nods, smiling brightly as she starts walking upstairs.
You hear a knocking at your bedroom door.
"Karri? Are you hungry?" Nadia's voice comes from beyond the door.
Ortik hurries after the junior priest, inwardly cursing about the longer strides the man is taking in his haste. He removes his hat as he enters the chapel, and nods to the blonde man.
"Father, my name is Ortik, and I have been assisting Field Marshall Kroft's office in some independent investigations for the last month or so. In the course of one such investigation, we found that the plague had been engineered by a cult of Urgothoa, and they had been researching it non-stop. We now have their notes. With these details, we believe it is possible to engineer a cure for the blood veil, and break the hold that the pox has upon the Old Dame." He withdraws the notes, offering them to the high priest.
The blond high priest's wrinkled face brightens with interest as you hand the assembled notes off to him. He peruses them intently, his eyes widening and his face paling as he reads. "...oh, heavens."
"These notes... some of these look as if they were penned by madmen. Though, considering where you took them from, I suppose shouldn't be too surprising." Father Giles rises to his feet. "Do you still need these notes? I can have one of our acolytes transcribe them."
"Have your scriveners work quickly," he replies to the priest. "I intend to get these notes into the hands of every major temple and healer in Korvosa. This cure is too important to be held by any one person, even myself, and it needs to be available to everyone - rich and poor, young and old."
The junior priest takes the notes and hurries off with them. "Rest assured, we will!"
He pauses in his run to gather a few of the other acolytes attending the plague victims. A few of them go with him, while the others stay with the diseased.
Ortik nods in thanks to the junior priest, and looks to the acolytes. "I'm not the greatest healer, but I know a few things. While I wait for the scriveners to return, how can I help?"
"We still have several patients that need healing--if you could help us with that, we'd appreciate it very much."
"I'll do my best," he says, rolling up his sleeves and getting to work. Ortik does what he can to make the plague's victims comfortable, asking the Old Dame to grant them a bit of her strength.
Ortik's efforts seem to have made the rest of the priests' jobs much easier. The hour passes swiftly, and it isn't long before his notes on the plague are returned to him.
It takes Ortik the better part of a day before he's able to get his notes to every faith in the city. From the brightly lit halls of Sarenrae's faithful to the small, colourful sanctuary dedicated to Shelyn, to the somber cathedral of Pharasma, the bank of Abadar, and even the gothic, imposing spires of Asmodeus, not a single priesthood is left out when it comes to the distribution of a cure for this horrendous plague.
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A couple of days pass...
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Wealday, 8th of Pharast, 4711 AR
Today, a change can be seen in the streets of Korvosa.
Countless citizens flock to the city's temples in desperate search of healing. Today, things are different... a cure has been created.
The healing process is slow going, at first. There are so many afflicted citizens, and only so many healers. But it doesn't stop them. Within hours of receiving the cure, those who once carried the plague with them have the illness purged from them. Before long, word of the miraculous cure spreads like wildfire in Korvosa.
By the end of the day, the reek of plague has been greatly reduced on the streets. More and more citizens look healthier than ever. A steady stream of diseased men, women and children file into the temples and emerge with their blood cleansed of Urgathoan filth, though their bodies will still need time to recover.
As the sun rises high into the sky, the party starts receiving cheers and profuse thanks whenever they show their faces on the street. It appears that word of their valour has spread, faster than Blood Veil ever did.
By mid-afternoon, Majenko races through the streets, letters bulging from his little satchel. He drops the following letter into the party's collective hands...
Field Marshal Cressida Kroft of the Korvosan Guard
Well then, I wonder what's this about now. Nalun says, grinning at Lyla who he had been hanging out with.
Nadia waves to the tiny dragon when he appears. For once, things were calm and content. No Lamm and no blood veil to worry about. Demitri only had to worry about taking care of his little girl. Luckily the others were around to help on occasion with Karri being the most helpful. Demitri let out a smile, something he couldn't help but do especially the last few weeks. "C'mon little girl. You can go with me this time."
Ortik stays moving for the remainder of that fateful day, barely stopping to eat or drink, taking to pacing when there is no work to concern himself. When he eventually returns home to the Ffolk, he hands the cure to the Old Man himself, sinking into a chair in his living room and falling asleep quickly. "I've done what I could," he mumbles to his mentor before drifting off into a well-earned sleep.
Over the next few days, he finds himself concerned by his newfound fame. A handshake here, a tearful hug there, certainly, but cheers and such cause his throat to tighten. "I did what any citizen of Korvosa would do with the abilities afforded to me," he says in what comes to be a well-rehearsed speech. "The heroism you ascribe to me is what I would imagine each of you would have done, were our places reversed. We are more than Korvosans, friends. We are all Korvosa."
And he gets to know them, as best he can. Learning their names, learning their faces, hearing their stories. He knows that in a city as large as Korvosa with as many souls as there are within it, a single voice is hard to hear. Which makes it all the more important to listen to that voice, to let them know that they're not forgotten.
So, when a simple meal between himself and a few stevedores is interrupted by Majenko's arrival, it shakes him from the task he has set before himself. He excuses himself from his party, paying their tab and heading to Castle Korvosa, his concerns about returning to the Queen's presence somewhat mollified by the presence of Field Marshall Kroft.
After days locked in her room Karri comes down, drawn and pale. Meeting Demitri in the kitchen she hurriedly whispers, "we can leave after I eat something." once she has eaten, some color returns and her mood improves.
While Nadia is out of the room shes says to no one in particular, "This letter, I think is a threat. The queen was not pleased with us. Please keep your eyes open."
"You think so? I didn't think that Majenko was a friend of the queen, but alright."
With Nalun's help, Lyla gets the potion she wanted. She drinks her extract of alchemical allocation and then stuffs the potion of remove blindness in her mouth, rinsing and garlgling before spitting it back into its original vial. Little by little, she can notice the images forming before her eyes, once again. She looks at Nalun with a wide smile no her face. "Man, am I happy to see your grumpy face, slim! Thanks for the help," she says, throwing a friendly punch aginst Nalun's thigh. She turns around to see the chaotic shop of magic ran by the old half-orc, and nods at him as she leaves the place. "Now, we have to get back to Ortik and help with the cure." Lyla drags Nalun with her, but every time they reach one of the temples, it seems like Ortik has already left taking the cure recipe from one place to another. After a couple of tries, the halfling decides to let Ortik go on with his task and help the sanctuary of Shaelyn take the cure to the streets, urging Nalun to do the same. She helps with the distribution of the cure for as long as she can stand up, and keeps a few samples to take home, where her family might be in need of it. I hope Hygan found everyone well, she thinks to herself, going over the directions she gave her brother to ensure she didn't make any mistakes. Actually, I hope he found the house.
At the end of the day, well past sundown, she gets back to the home she rented for the Fairwoods, checking on everyone's health and administering curatives when necessary. To see the family reunited again fills her with joy, but she can sense the tension between Hyrgan and her. After everyone has gone to sleep, the two siblings have a moment alone. They both seem to avoid touching the subject of the Urgathoan cult, but Lyla breaks the silence. "Hyrgan... what you've done back there, I don't even wanna know. I had to do to some bad stuff too, after I was kidnapped, and that's not who I am, like I know that is not who you are. I'll never speak a word of it to dad or anyone. Let's start up anew, okay?" She grabs Hyrgan's hand, squeezes it gently, and leaves. She enters Althea's shop through her bedroom window, and gently opens the old woman's door. Althea sleeps in peace, obvisoult tired from producing so many antiplagues. Lyla sneaks into her bed and falls asleep next to the healer.
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In the next few days, Lyla keeps helping with the distribution of the cure, but manages to find some time to spend with her family, in which she includes Althea. She also focuses on her studies. The girl deciphers the potions of water breathing and remove blindness and adds them to her formula book, and also manages to sell some of the loot they acquired from the cult of Urgathoa.
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The halfling hangs out with Nalun at a bar in the Shingles. Don't frown, it's a bit dirty, but you'll love the ambiance," she had told him to convince him to come. When Majenko flies in through the window and dropd the letter on the table before them, everyone stops to look at the scene. The pseudodragon flies away as suddenly as he had come. As Nalun expresses his curiosity on the matter, Lyla also ponders on the subject. "Well, I wouldn't be too excited about that 'formal recognition'. If the Queen's gonna be there, we should be ready for some bad news," she says pessimistically.
As the party converges on Castle Korvosa, they notice that there's a large crowd spilling out onto the steps of the pyramid the castle rests on. Men and women, noble and smallfolk, Maiden and Guard... it feels like the entire city has turned out for this event. As the party ascends the steps of the Grand Mastaba, the crowd parts for them with a reverence usually reserved for kings.
Standing in the courtyard of Castle Korvosa is a collection of nobles and soldiers, with only a few recognizable faces in the crowd. Field Marshal Kroft is standing at attention with her hands folded behind her back, and Zenobia Zenderholm is watching the party intently from the collected nobility with a smile on her face. Next to Kroft is a sandy-haired man in Sable Company dress blues. A large variety of medals are pinned on his uniform's breast, and the weathered lines on his face tell stories of a hundred military campaigns. His hardened eyes find the party and he steps forward.
Curiously, the Queen is nowhere to be found.
"Greetings, Citizens of Korvosa." The man's voice booms across the castle's courtyard. "Step forward." He beckons the party forward.
Demitri puts down Nadia but grasps her hand as he steps forward.
Karri's skin crawls as she frets about how quickly this mob can be turned against her and her friends. Nonsense, this is our reward for risking ourselves for Korvosa! Kasdaye adds his two coppers, Of course. Ileosa is ecstatic about your success. And she could kill everyone here and then blame your corpse. But, sure, trust the whore queen. She stands near Demitri, her eyess on the crowd...
Nalun grins at Lyla Ambiance, right. You just like it cause you can reach the counter
______________________
When the General motions the group forward Nalun, dressed in his finest, steps alongside Demitri and Karri. He gives Lyla the What are you waiting for look.
Ortik steps forward with the rest of his friends, removing his fur hat as he does so, running a hand through his thick orange mop of hair.
Feeling vulnerable, Lyla hesitates a little, intimidated by all eyes on her and the group. She catches Nalun's glance and also its meaning. We'd better play along, she thinks, taking a step forward with a forced smile on her lips.
"My thanks, heroes." The uniformed man bows briefly to them. "Allow me to introduce myself--I am Marcus Thalassinus Endrin, Commandant of the Sable Company and acting seneschal of Castle Korvosa."
"We are gathered here today to honour the accomplishments of five of Korvosa's citizens--men and women who embody the virtues of compassion, dedication and determination that our proud city holds dear." The commandant spreads his arms wide. "A horrendous plague rampaged through our streets, consuming rich and poor, upstanding and questionable alike. Our most prominent and strongest faiths together could only slow the plague's progress."
"But these citizens have gone above and beyond the call of duty to bring a cure for this disease... and have ferreted out the madmen responsible for creating it."
A well-dressed young man steps forward, next to the commandant. A small chest is in his hands.
"Though it is disappointing that our beloved Queen is unable to attend this ceremony, she has given me the authority to reward them in her stead." The young man opens the chest, revealing a set of five medals emblazoned with a dragon's head on them. Underneath the medals are a set of five scrolls.
"Demitri Severin, Karri Chouk, Nalun Elzrahar, Ortik of the Forgottenfolk, and Lyla of the Shingles, it is with my highest praise that you are to be awarded the Korvosan Medal of Valour." The commandant takes the medals and puts them around each of their necks (having to get down on one knee for Lyla). He slips the scrolls that came with them into your hands as well. "The highest honour the Peerage and the Queen may bestow upon a champion of the state."
"From this day forth, let it be known that these five are the Champions of Korvosa! May their deeds be sung through the ages!"
The crowd erupts into cacophonic cheers and applause!
Ortik's eyes widen as he sees the medals within the chest, and his throat tightens as Commandant Endrin places the medal around his neck. As he looks around at the cheering crowd, tears of joy pool in his eyes and spill down his cheeks, wetting his beard.
For once, Ortik finds himself speechless.
Nalun looks somewhat abashed at the medal. He thinks Well, now I've just made myself a hell of a lot of trouble. No more bounties for me...I'm much too well known now.
However, somewhere down in his heart, he is very proud of himself.
Demitri continues to smile as he is awarded the medal. He looks down at his proud little girl and puts her on his shoulders as the crowd cheers.
"Hear hear!" Kroft claps her hands as well, looking immeasurably relieved.
"Now, if the lot of you will follow me, I'd like to bring you back to the Citadel. It's my turn to reward you."
Demitri follows Kroft into the citadel, Nadia on his shoulders.
Ortik nods his head at Kroft's words, and follows the Field Marshall back to the Citadel.
Nalun also follows, silently wishing he were anywhere else.
Lyla nods and thanks the commander for the medal. She turns around with an akward smile, raises her hands, and wave to the crowd, unsure of how to react. For a moment, she puts aside her reservations with the Queen and her servants, and takes in the sight of the crowd before her. She leans towards the rest of the group and comments discreetly. "This makes it worth it. Not the fame, but this: seeing the city still going strong." Then, answering Kroft's summon, she follows the group, walking backwards while still facing the crowd and waving. Hmm, I think I could get used to the adulation, though...
The walk to the Citadel is flanked on all sides by cheering crowds. There's still a lingering odour of blood on the air, but it's rapidly being dispersed by a salt-scented wind blowing in from the harbour.
"Now, maybe I'll be able to sleep for longer than a few hours before something goes wrong." Kroft chuckles as she leads the party down Field Marshal Avenue. "In all seriousness, the city owes you a debt it'll be hard-pressed to repay."
"With that in mind, I've got another offer to make. I'd like to officially deputize the lot of you as official Guardsmen. No need for oaths or protocol or anything like that--hell, you've been more effective than my own force has been in keeping Korvosa safe. We can skip that."
Sounds more like gaining a debt than a reward...
"Alright."
Ortik thinks for a moment, then nods his head. "I owe Griggs a debt I cannot repay," he says. "We killed him when he needed our help the most. I can't bring him back, but I can do his job in his place. I'll be happy to protect and serve my home, Field Marshall."
"What does that change? I'm kind of cool with how things are right now," Lyla says rather candidily. "I mean, I'd rather not have to wear a uniform, or file reports, or, you know," follow every rule, she completes in her head.
Yeah. I'm not real comfortable being official. But, at this point aren't we already?
Ortik thinks for a moment, then nods his head. "I owe Griggs a debt I cannot repay," he says. "We killed him when he needed our help the most. I can't bring him back, but I can do his job in his place. I'll be happy to protect and serve my home, Field Marshall."
"Hey, as long as the lot of you don't get innocents hurt on the job, I'm willing to give you a bit of leeway in that regard, Lyla." Kroft says as the party reaches the Citadel's gates.
"Yeah. I'm not real comfortable being official. But, at this point aren't we already?"
"More or less. But, I've got a good reason for all this, Nalun."
She strides across the Citadel's courtyard and opens the grand doors into the armoury. She takes a few steps inside, and pauses. "See, the Peerage doesn't allow government resources to be given away as rewards to citizens. That includes the armoury of Citadel Volshyenek... but those officially affiliated with or employed by the state are allowed to be rewarded as such."
She turns to the party and smirks. "See anything you like?"
Ortik returns Kroft's smile. "I'm sure I can find a few things here to aid me on my beat, ma'am." He spends some time browsing through the rows of weapons and armor, eventually settling on a new suit of hide armor and a sturdy wooden shield.
Makes sense, and I agree.
Nalun finds a magical buckler (+1 Buckler) and a cloak of resistance. (+1)
Lyla's eyes widen and her jaw drops when she enters the armory. "I'm in," she says before sprinting into the room. The girl walks from one side to the other, looking for anything that might ineterest her. On a corner, she finds a cabinet with some vials, possibly boosts for soldiers on special assignments. She picks up two potions and stuffs her in her pocket. Then, she starts looking for a suit of armor. Everything seems bigger than her, made for humans, evidently, and she starts to lose hope of finding something that fits when she stumbles on a bunelde lying on the floor, covered in dust. Over a piece of small armor that looks more like a bunch of interwoven leaves and branches, abandoned for being too small for any regular solcier, she finds a pair of strange sleeves. Intrigued, Lyla takes the time to study the objects; when she realizes what is in front of her, she smiles and takes them for her. "Found it!"
"I never got a bonus when I use to work for you, so I'm due for one." Demitri searches around before setting his eyes on a finely crafted sword, of even better quality than any of the ones he is currently wielding. He also finds a well-made shield that has seen surprisingly little use.