forked from dozens/cleric-plus-thief
268 lines
9.0 KiB
HTML
268 lines
9.0 KiB
HTML
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</style>
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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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<style>
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html {
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</style>
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<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/html5shiv/3.7.3/html5shiv-printshiv.min.js"></script>
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<![endif]-->
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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 fresh
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picked goosefingers from the abandoned orchard.</p>
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<p>She stops before a blank wall on the side of the log house and waits,
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her arms full of fruit basket, as an opening slowly appears. When it is
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large enough, she steps inside and the 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 and his meaty jowls hang on
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an 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 scoops out the flesh, plates it with
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some bread, and brings it to Meadowgloom who accepts with a weak
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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. Being back here.”</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 nods slightly. Another
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Maddox snaps into existence by the table with the fruit basket. “I’m
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recalling everybody,” this new Maddox says, the first Maddox popping out
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of existence. “I need to have just one person in my head for a while.”
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They leave the common room, going into one of the bedrooms and closes
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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. More and more they
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are becoming a small, wild forest. Goosefinger fruit lies rotting on the
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ground in the summer. 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: what the people of
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Kriteach started in retribution, the monks themselves finished in
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penitence.</p>
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<p>A lot of rubble and a few walls, an intact room here and there, are
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all that remain of 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 & 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. I just move cargo. The Count thinks I’m behind the
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whole thing! I don’t know how he found out. But suddenly I had royal
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funding. The shipments started coming in more frequently, and I had to
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step away from my other ventures and just … do whatever this is
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fulltime. Of coure I knew the Hand would find out. They know about
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everything that comes through the harbor. I knew that being in the
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pocket of the royals would do me any favors with them. But for a while
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it seemed I was untouchable. Until … until I found out what we were
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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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</body>
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</html>
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