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Pilts sighs again. ”He was shipped to me, believe it or not. I found him packed in a crate of items from Cheliax. Near dead, tongue cut out, and an eye burnt out as well. Clearly he had been tortured but I nursed him back to health. Poor Jabbyr, loyal to the bitter end.”
If Pilts is lying, he is offering no tells and seems sincere, though he does look at Firdall with a bit of annoyance for the theater crack. With a wilt that would put a disaffected goth teenager to shame, Pilts asks, "If you have no more need of me, may I go? You will have no trouble from me. All I am and all I have are undone."
As Tolenn regards Pilts and his groveling, nothing in his behavior betrays any hint that he isn't truly terrified and pleading for his miserable and mean life.
Jabbyr does seem to be of the right stature to be a gnome, though under the executioner's hood, it's kind of hard to tell. He's definitely a strange fellow. Strong build for someone so small. But also definitely evil.
The Emperor seems a bit taken back by Tolenn's disrespectful demeanor and his words come out in a rush. "No weapons. No spells. Get the pig to the goal. Now GET OUT TO THE FIELD!" he almost screeches at the end.
The guards step back after leading Tolenn to the Emperor. Jabbyr the gnome executioner, comes forward to stand at the king's flank, his eyes wide beneath his executioner's hood in anticipation of being able to ply his trade. The Emperor, for his part, seems a bit put out. "It seems you do not like the entertainment We have devised, after all. Moreover, you have succeeded in disrupting Our game with your own spectacle. This will not do. All spectacles here must be Our spectacles. You must be punished." The Emperor stands up and shouts out, "Since this one needs be the center of attention in Our court, she shall join the Blood Pig game on the currently losing side!" The crowd cheers. The members of the team down in the score all kind of look at each other and shrug while the other team's players crack their knuckles and chuckle. Jabbyr looks a little disappointed until the Emperor says to him with a wink, "We shall put you on the opposing side, Jabbyr, just to keep things interesting." Then the homicidal gnome looks positively transported.
Amira and Cassandra, now that they're on top of the roof, can see the reason for the intermittent cheers that erupt from the crowd. On the flat-topped building between themselves and the Emperor's Throne, there seems to be a game in progress in which the game ball appears to be a small pig. Considering the punches being thrown, the game seems fairly violent. Tolenn is brought before the Emperor and, with the four thugs, that leads to a fairly crowded platform. It has a brightly colored canvas roof to keep off the weather, held in place via a wooden framework. About the interior of the canvas are decorations of gruesome scenes - battlefields, executions, torture, human-eating monsters. The Emperor's throne seems a mock-up of the Crimson Throne with blood-red cushions, silks, and spikes. Nearby stands the guillotine carved of wood and bone with its base depicting a demon's feet and the blade's housing a demon's face. Pilts Swastel himself is thin and has a pock-ridden face, partially acne and partially the legacy of a recent bout of the blood veil. His clothing is an ill-assorted rag tag of fancy clothing that have gone stained and threadbare. He has all the appearance of a vagrant more than a king. But his voice is stronger and deeper than his thin body would suggest.
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