Until the Dawn
A secret organization is no more. A public entity, however, has been born.
Six decades of secrecy prepared The Harpies for a time where their existence and operation could no longer be hidden in the shadows of the Underhang. On this day, as the star alights the face of Evershoal in its golden embrace, the world in which we exist is a different place.
A few short months ago, every citizen of the city, whether pleased by their lot or craving change, knew what they could expect from their city. They would wake to ships unloading in The Docks, the chatter of revelers returning home in the Underhang, the smell of baked morsels wafting down the Terraces, and the clatter of coin as it was exchanged in the Shaletop. Life was perhaps not perfect, but it was expected.
Now, as we await a new day, a new light has shone on our beloved Evershoal and our beloved Hallea.
Veins of corruption have begun to sew rot through the fabric that binds the story of the city and of the nation. A rot that The Harpies were unable to cut out before it took hold. Thankfully, a group rooted in the small shire of Quillpond, my namesake and home, were there to wield the knife when we had grown blind.
And in doing so, these bold few tore open the walls of the city and found that much more rot existed and grew much deeper than we ever knew. With their light shining bright, they discovered not only the infestation of our home, but brought into view the winding tendrils that stretch out, like blighted roots to the world around us.
Something great and foul festers in this world, and we have these humble few to thank for the opportunity to sever these fell tendrils before they choke out light and hope.
- Unknown, Nestwarden, The Unknown
Much has happened in these past months.
Justice Can Change Shape, Too
Emmitt Staten has been exposed as a cur and a fool. Though unable to exact prosecution upon his malevolence, he suffers a fate that, for him, will be equally devastating. He has been ruined. His legitimacy need not be questioned in the courts when it will be just as thoroughly destroyed in the minds of the merchants of the Plane. Over the course of the next few months, The Staten Exchange will fall into disarray as contracts are canceled, available routes are slammed shut, and former allies, seeing the results of Emmitt’s blind greed, abandon the company altogether.
The Creeping Rot
In these most recent days, Kallista Kaine was exposed as not only a generally manipulative person with her claws deep into the nape of Emmitt Staten, but also as an other-worldly being of evil and corruption. Likely not her true name, but a name to call her by nonetheless, Kallista was discovered to be a Night Hag. Night Hags are beings originally of the feywild whose desire for corruption and manipulation grew, in that plane, into a perverse obsession. Deemed too foul for the immense chaos of the Fey Courts, they were cast away and exiled to Hades where their motivation for this sickly joy might abate. However, they would not be held there long and the Night Hags, drawn to either ordered suffering or unbridled brutality traveled through the Lower Planes to The Nine Hells and The Abyss where they found brethren, devils and demons, who had a greater appreciation for their predilections.
Kallista employed both devils and demons along with a number of changelings to attempt to seize control over the leadership of Hallea. When she was discovered and thwarted, she seemed to tear a hole in the fabric of space and shunted herself to another place. A place that glowed red and where ash bore the shape of the winds.
How Far Does the Bile Seep?
At the Unknown, as it was being taken under siege rather unsuccessfully (laughably unsuccessfully), the newly established allies from Bosaadak in the Koumazot Islands made mention that they, too, had seen such creatures, devils and demons, make appearances in their capitol around the time that the direction of their leadership’s motivations changed rather abruptly. Equally concerning was the presence of a new advisor, a woman, who had appeared behind the throne. They had never heard of the name Kallista Kaine. However, history and lore is abound with stories of these hags, these witches, and how they so often appear in threes.
In addition, the individual that led the attack on the Celeano house was found to be carrying something that is, perhaps, even more worrying. A missive in the foreign Damenthian dialect of Common seemed to contain orders to “find and eliminate the opposition and begin preparations to move on to the next target once Evershoal falls”. It seems that the fiendish foes may not be working alone.
A World Where Redemption is Real?
Sometimes, unfortunate circumstances and reactionary thinking lead to terrible events. A childhood of indoctrination and an adulthood of abandonment lead Maxwell Staten to act out in a terrible way, alongside his sister, when they attacked the Order of the Teeming Verdant Wood outside of Quillpond. Minerva suffered a more definite fate for her efforts, but Max has suffered much more since. Afflicted by lycanthropy, Max’s hatred for shapeshifters was only bolstered as he dragged his sister’s body from the forest. He came to embrace the power that the “curse” provided him and used it as motivation to teach his father a lesson and, perhaps, to teach those who took his sister’s life a lesson, as well. However, empathy may have won out, as the latter of those two was ameliorated when Maxwell was assisted with the resurrection of his sister. His focus, then, fell firmly on the shoulders of Emmitt and his organization.
Maxwell and Minerva are still not good people. They are certainly flawed and still have their bigoted views toward shapeshifters that persist. However, there may be hope. Strangers showed an unnecessary regard for Max once and with a consistent challenge to his problematic worldview, perhaps there is still room for positive change.
Punishment in Kind
Former Sergeant Rixser Meles was another type of evil. Greedy, arrogant, uncaring, corrupt. However, some stories reach a completion that is befitting of the main character.
Sometimes, your arrogance leads you into an act of extreme bravado. Sometimes that act of extreme bravado turns into an abomination of flesh. That’s what happens when you take the research of a somewhat accomplished necromancer and attempt to bend them to your twisted will.
And sometimes, that immediately bites back. Meles took leaps and bounds toward corrupted power from being an everyday corrupt officer of The Slatebearers and found himself exactly where he deserved to be. After incapacitating himself in a ritual gone wrong, he was arrested for his crimes and, under the careful and exacting care of his former employers, the extent of his crimes truly came to bear. Years of dirty deals and extortion in the Docks lead to the murder of a fellow Slatebearer, a coverup, a descent further into the criminal underworld of Evershoal, and finally to a ritual circle underneath a Sanguine Knell warehouse. And in that warehouse, he saw past what he truly could understand. He saw that ill intention and corruption of the mind leads to corruption of the soul and of the flesh. He saw the manifestation of that corruption.
One cannot necessarily speak to the motivations of Meles after that, but what was left of his soul was barred to the investigators. His confessions spared him the sword, but a lifetime in cages next to those who you threatened, beat, and spit on may not yet be the mercy Meles hoped for.