272 lines
9.1 KiB
HTML
272 lines
9.1 KiB
HTML
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<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="episodes" href="http://tilde.town/~dozens/clericthief/episodes.xml">
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<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="journal" href="http://tilde.town/~dozens/clericthief/journal.xml">
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</head>
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<body>
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Cleric + Thief
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| <a href="index.html">Episodes</a>
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| <a href="journal.html">Journal</a>
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| <a href="about.html">About</a>
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<header id="title-block-header">
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<h1 class="title">00007. Tall Man</h1>
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</header>
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<p>Iofi walks up the dirt path to the cottage with a basket of fruit,
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fresh picked from the abandoned, wild orchard.</p>
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<p>She walks past the front door, around to the side of the log house
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and stops before a blank wall. She waits, her arms full of fruit basket,
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as an opening in the wall slowly appears. She steps inside and the
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portal closes behind her.</p>
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<p>Inside, Meadowgloom is sitting, propped up in a chair near the
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fireplace. He is pale and thin now. His hair is thinner, and white. His
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large watery eyes dominate his sunken face now. And his jowls hang on an
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otherwise gaunt face.</p>
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<p>It is traumatic coming back from the dead.</p>
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<p>Blackguard and Maddox are sitting with him.</p>
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<p>Iofi sets the basket down on the table and retrieves one of the long,
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yellow, fuzzy pods. She peels it open revealing a bright green flesh
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speckled with small dark seeds. She dices it up, plates it with some
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bread, and brings it to Meadowgloom who accepts with a weak smile.</p>
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<p>Maddox shifts uncomfortably in their chair. Iofi looks at him
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questioningly.</p>
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<p>“Nothing,” they say. “I just. I just didn’t expect it to still be
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this hard.”</p>
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<p>“You don’t have to keep going down there,” she replies gently,
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sitting down next to them. “Why don’t you come on back. There’s no
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reason to torture yourself.”</p>
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<p>Maddox looks away, closes their eyes, and sighs. Another Maddox snaps
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into existence by the table with the fruit basket. “I’m recalling
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everybody,” this new Maddox says, the first Maddox popping out of
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existence. “I need to have just one person in my head for a while,” the
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new Maddox continues. They leave the common room, going into one of the
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bedrooms and closes the door behind them.</p>
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<p>Iofi turns and looks at the fireplace. She and Blackguard watch in
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silence as Meadowgloom pretends to eat.</p>
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<center>
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<pre>~ * ~</pre>
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</center>
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<p>Bridgers Farm is an abandoned orchard just outside the walls of
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Kriteach. The goosefinger trees are growing untamed, and more and more
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are becoming a small, wild forest. Goosefinger fruit lies rotting on the
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ground in the autumn. The birds and small critters can’t eat it fast
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enough.</p>
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<p>The farm used to supply Melior Abbey with goosefinger to make wine
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and brandy, which the monks sold to support the abbey. And the farm.</p>
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<p>When the King Vulture died and the monks all went mad, the abbey was
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abandoned. And then it was razed to the ground in retribution.</p>
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<p>A few walls, an intact room here and there, are all that remain of
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Melior above ground.</p>
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<p>Below ground the tunnels remain. The cellars and the catacombs, and a
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few sealed tombs. One such sealed tomb is rumored to still hold the
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remains of the 12th abbot of Melior who, according to legend, was
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entombed alive as punishment for heresy and for plotting against the
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King Vulture. For centuries the abbot’s remains have rested inside the
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wall undisturbed until just very recently when he unexpectedly gained a
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new cellmate, the Hand’s master assassin.</p>
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<p>The Melior tunnels connect the abbey, nestled inside the city walls
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in Scholar’s Gate, to the orchard on the outside. A convenient way to
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transport fruit, and one of the few ways to bypass the city walls.</p>
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<p>The privacy and freedom of movement provided by the tunnels, in
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addition to the farm’s remoteness and its taboo association with the mad
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monks of the King Vulture, are why Iofi and Maddox moved their new base
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of operations here from the compromised Bone and Beak bookstore and
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cafe.</p>
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<p>“I think it’s time,” says Iofi and Blackguard tenses. “The Crown and
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the Hand are both looking for you, Blackguard. Why?”</p>
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<p>Blackguard seems to deflate. Meadowgloom is sleeping in a chair by
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the fire.</p>
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<p>“I didn’t know,” Blackguard starts. “I was … I was moving cargo. I
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would get a shipment container number, and then my men would go down to
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the dockyard and load up the crates and carry them out to Chicken Gate.
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And there’d be somebody there waiting to take the shipment. I didn’t
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know where it came from or where it went.”</p>
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<p>Blackguard looks up at Iofi, wild-eyed. “You have to believe me.
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Nobody believes me. The Count thinks I’m behind the whole thing! I don’t
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know how he found out. But suddenly I had royal funding. The shipments
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started coming in more frequently, and I had to step away from my other
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ventures and just … do whatever this is fulltime. Of coure I knew the
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Hand would find out. They know about everything that comes through the
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harbor. I knew that being in the pocket of the royals would do me any
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favors with them. But for a while it seemed I was untouchable. Until …
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until I found out what we were moving.”</p>
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<p>Blackguard’s voice drops to a whisper, he casts his eyes downward and
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rings his hands. “It was people. People, I tell you.”</p>
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<p>He looks up at Iofi, his eyes blazing. “It was Western people. It was
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Givzi people.”</p>
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<p>OUTLINE</p>
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<ul>
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<li>xp</li>
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<li>Camping in the abandoned orchards outside Melior Abbey</li>
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<li>Blackguard</li>
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<li>Tall Man</li>
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</ul>
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</body>
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</html>
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