Story of the Heretic Messiahs
7
JAN/21
A Few Nights Before the Day With Two Dawns:
She paused at the noise and held her breath, perking her ears up and feeling the silent heartbeat of the darkness that surrounded her. Sounds were amplified inside the sewer tunnels, but so too was noise from the outside world above, and so it was easy to let your guard down by the constant distraction. But Pakku had trained her well. She was certain that she had heard what could only be a soft boot upon loose dirt further down the tunnels, and the deafening silence that followed spoke volumes. He must be maintaining position and waiting until he is sure no one has noticed his misstep, she thought to herself. Trusting her instincts, she turned and crept down the hall away from the noise, moving slowly and silently through the darkness; feeling her way through the tunnels with her bare feet while she counted her steps to avoid getting lost. One, Two, Three…by the Five, it must be nice to be able to see in the dark, Wink mused as she stole her way through the pitch blackness. Seven, Eight, split should be right here…yes, take the left side, One, Two…
She arrived back at the clubhouse in record time and saw to her dismay that someone had left two of the candles burning in there, the stubby beeswax had melted down to shallow pools, but the stubborn flames still sputtered weakly. Wink thought about extinguishing the candles, but she also realized that the smell of smoke would give her away just as much as the weak flames did, and fresh smoke and warm wax would certainly betray her proximity. It would be much harder to hide herself in dim light than in total darkness, she knew; and the presence candles would encourage a more excited search of the area, but that was all part of the challenge, wasn’t it?
She read the room quickly, noting which of her usual hiding places were most concealed in shadow. When she settled on her spot, Wink silently hoisted herself up into a narrow cubby near the ceiling and covered herself with her threadbare cloak – a cloak which, not coincidentally, was almost the exact smoky, earthen color of the sewer walls. Wink held her breath and listened and waited for what seemed like an eternity before a whisper in her ear made her jump and almost – but not quite – squeal in surprise.
“You’re getting better.”
“I thought I had you this time – I heard you in the hall,” Wink responded with a grin, and she hopped down into his arms, and Pakku lowered her gently to the ground and stepped back to look at her. Part of her wished he hadn’t let her go so quickly.
Pakku looked slightly surprised. “I noted that sand beneath my feet at that first wye. I hadn’t expected that, but I was also pretty sure it had hardly made a sound. Was it you that put that there?”
Wink blushed with pride. “Well, it seemed safer than a spike trap.”
“I am impressed that you heard me,” he said smiling, as he tousled her hair with a gloved hand.
Wink tried to hide her crestfallen expression, and smiled up at him bravely. He still thinks of me as a kid. “Well, I have a good teacher,” she said softly, looking away to avoid his gaze.
If Pakku noticed the change in her demeanor, he gave no indication. “I am serious,” he said solemnly, placing his hand on her delicate shoulder, “You have really shown a…..hey!”
She flashed him a mischievous wink and flashed his own dagger in front of his face with an air of feigned malice. “Hands off, Mister,” Wink said with fake seriousness, though her dangerous ruse was spoiled by a complete inability to keep a smile from cracking through her otherwise fierce expression.
Pakku put his hands up in mock fear, “I surrender, I surrender!” Then he lowered his hands back down and drew another knife from his leather bracer. “I have a little time until Niki comes down here to spar; we can go over our knife forms until then if you want?” The widening grin on her face answered his question.
“Okay then, let’s work on our grips, and practice switching from a forward grip to a reverse,” he said as he moved in beside her so she could mirror the graceful movement of his blade. “This will help keep your enemies off their balance as you change your threat range with each different position,” Pakku said, effortlessly making the dagger dance through his fingers. “But make sure to guard the blade during the transition or else….”
And so they practiced for the next hour; Wink following along as best she could, absorbing his words and movements, soaking them up like the thirsty desert soaks up a summer rain, and she wished the lesson would never end…
A Few Days Later:
Wink sat perched on the small rock outcropping and watched as the group began to assemble their gear and discuss a plan of attack for gaining access into the Sand Voyager Guild House and trying to get information regarding the missing Princess Shadalah. By the Five, they were on an actual quest to rescue a sodding Princess! It was like something a minstrel would sing about, Wink thought, barely able to contain her excitement.
She sat apart from the group and tried to stay as innocuous as possible while the four of them deliberated on the best plan, going over the pros and cons of each option in great detail. Wink had felt it would be smarter to try to enter the guildhall through the secret entrance in the sewers but her luck hadn’t been very stellar lately and she would probably get them all caught immediately, she thought ruefully. Better to let the others decide. Besides, she thought, if I chime in too much, they might remember that I am here and order me to stay behind on account of my age, and relative inexperience with little things like Princess rescuing.
As the four of the deliberated, Wink switched her focus between them, and found herself in awe with this new group she had somehow found herself involved with: an escaped slave turned warrior; a noble who felt at home in the sewers; a…whatever Yetto was…Bounty Hunter? Conman? Templar? Bard?; and last but not least, a gold dragonborn! How many people could say that they knew one of them? As the the four of them talked, Wink felt the smile growing upon her face. Her life finally had purpose, and she had people to share it with for a change; for the first time in years, she felt like she had a home.
Her own life had changed an awful lot in the past couple days – Hells, she knew magic now! She hadn’t really had time to process that, but her hallucinatory dreams the past few nights since her meeting with the old woman seemed to have awakened a part of her that had lain dormant within her up until now. While she did not know how she knew, she understood that this was somehow a blessing of the silver snake that was covered in eyes; a creature that revealed itself to her in her dreams. She dropped her hand down to the little pouch on her hip and felt the serpent within react to her touch. This little snake had to be related to the ancient Mul and the serpent with many eyes, but she just didn’t quite understand the connection yet.
“Wink, wanna play daggers?” A child’s voice broke her out of her contemplation, and she looked over to where Nihl stood, holding the bone dagger she had given him earlier in the day, a broad smile on his cherubic face.
“Sure,” she responded with a smile, hopping down off of the wall and unsheathing the short sword she had lifted off of the unfortunate thugs who had come after Inex and Yetto earlier in the day. The bone blade was inset with teeth of obsidian – many of them broken off – and, while heavier than her dagger by a good margin, Wink found that she could maneuver it almost as well, despite her unfamiliarity with it.
“Okay then, let’s work on our grips, and practice switching from a forward grip to a reverse,” she said as she moved in beside Nihl so that he could mirror the wide, graceful arcs of her chipped blade. “This will help keep your enemies off their balance as you change your threat range with each different position,” Wink said, almost effortlessly making the sword dance through her fingers. “But make sure to guard the blade during the transition or else….”
And so they practiced for the next hour; Nihl following along as best he could, both of them wearing matching grins…
The main story was getting a little long, so I broke out the parts where Wink reflects on each of the other players in a little more detail in order to make the story manageable. I think there are some fun insights here, so I am putting them in this section, but they are ancillary to the main story:
Wink looked at Inex in a new light since their engagement with the ruffians in the sewers earlier in the day. She had always had a fondness for the Guardian of the Depths – he seemed like something out of myth: something impossible and powerful; like a forgotten relic of legend; a man marked by the ire of the dark goddess Herself. In spite of his outlawed and forbidden heritage, Inex protected the sewers and those who lived within this domain with selfless intensity. But his head was worth twenty gold? Tiamat’s Fury, she could not even fathom that much money. Family members would betray one another for a tiny fraction of that amount; how could he be worth so much? Were his scales actual gold? No, that seemed racist. Still, the bravery it must take for him to venture forth from the relative safety of the sewers, Wink could not even imagine.
She always felt awestruck to be in his presence in the few years she had known him. On the few occasions where an Eboncloak had followed her into the sewers, Wink always knew that Inex would protect her. The crime for striking a black guard was death, yet Inex seemed to have no problem engaging them when they entered into his domain beneath the streets, especially if they threatened his flock. As repayment, Inex would occasionally call for her and send her to the surface to procure some hard to find item or foodstuffs for the families he looked after, and she would happily oblige; eager to earn the good graces of the Guardian and pay back his kindness in any small way she could. And now, with the knowledge that his head worth a noble’s fortune, Wink was certain that there would be more thugs coming after him and in greater numbers, and there would be many opportunities to return his kindness many more times in the days to come. Wink hoped she was up to the task, but mostly she was proud of herself by not being tempted one bit to try to capitalize on that grand bounty.
Those same ruffians seemed to be hunting for Yetto, as well – something to do with getting someone accused of being a messy something-something. She had just met Yetto earlier in the day, and now the same hunters who were going after Inex were said to be going after him as well? What were the odds of that, she wondered? It all felt like a trap to Wink, most coincidences were. I mean, why not sacrifice a few expendables in order to get Yetto to gain everyone’s confidence; he was being hunted by bad people, after all. Then once he had gained everyone’s trust, he could strike at his leisure. It just reeked of a classic Foe-Of-My-Foe confidence game to her.
Wink’s first instinct was that Yetto must be a Templar and their card had been pulled for some reason. He must have been tasked with clearing out Inex and the denizens of the sewers. She tried to get a read on him – she was pretty good at that – but there was also an almost mystical magnetism about him. Whenever he spoke, she was surprised to find that she believed him. Fully. And although nearly everything about him triggered warning bells in her, Yetto would instantly extinguish any troubled feelings with a word. Wink idly wondered if magic was the source of his preternatural charm, though he certainly did not seem to be a Defiler. She had never met a Defiler before, but she had heard the stories. It was rumored that you could literally see and feel the taint of the dark, corruptive magic they wielded, and there was nothing of the sort about Yetto. No, it was something else.
She would have to watch him, but that would be easy – it was hard not to watch him. There was a draw to him, a pull that seemed bend people to him. They all trusted him, even the Whithall guards had seemed to fall under his sway. The source of his draw was ethereal but overwhelming, like he was privy to secrets and knowledge hidden to the rest of the world and you had to find out just what he knew. The core secret that Yetto kept repeating throughout the day was that he could see that their group was connected by powerful golden threads of destiny; that they were all linked and they were all important for what lay ahead. It sounded fanciful and dangerous and by the end of their day together, Wink believed his every word.
Of all of them, Wink knew Niki the best. On many occasions, she had watched the young nobleman spar with Pakku – well, mostly she had watched Pakku, if she was being honest. The young man was quick on his feet and seemed to show a real creativity in combat during their matches; on a few occasions he even scored a hit or two upon Pakku, though Wink suspected that Pakku had intentionally let his guard down in order to improve Niki’s morale when he was feeling flustered – he did the same with her, she was convinced. Still, the unorthodoxy of his fighting methods seemed to indicate that his was a natural talent and not a gift of a life growing up receiving the best combat training by fancy fencing masters.
When she had first met Niki in the sewers she had thought him to be an easy mark – well, once she got over her suspicion that he was down there trying to entrap her. Or worse. She had lifted his coin purse within the first minutes of their meeting, but after the better part of an hour with the young lord she returned it surreptitiously and only a few ceramic lighter. There was a haunted earnestness about him, and she grew to look forward to their infrequent visits. In spite of his aristocratic edge, he honestly seemed to care for the downtrodden; a charitable instinct that was in terribly short supply. And besides, Pakku trusted him, so he had to be a good person.
She shifted her attention to the escaped slave Arnia. There was something uniquely special about her, and Wink could not quite put her finger on it. She had simply never met anyone like Arnia before and she felt a special draw to her for some reason. Though she was only a few years older than Wink, Arnia radiated a calm maturity that belied her youth, and there was a sense of purity about her too: a veritable aura of goodness. What a rare luxury, to be a font of goodness in this dark, bleak world, Wink marveled. Arnia stood out like a comforting light in the darkness, and she found herself drawn to her. The way she moved; the way she fought; the way she pushed them all to protect Nihl, the battered and neglected child they had met on the streets earlier in the day. And, Arnia had come back for her during the fight with the thugs in the sewers! When Wink had been hiding from the bandits, Arnia had actually doubled back to make certain that she was okay, having only met her mere minutes before. Perhaps Yetto was right? There did seem to be some sort of divine connection tying them together.