The Shattered City: Chapter Three

[Rock of the Fraternity]

"Everyone is someone, child," Lia says, and shrugs. The wizard sets her staff in the crook of her arm as she gives the girl a penetrating look. "Everyone has to be somewhere. Why are you here?"

(OOC: Arcana check to see whether the little girl is magical: 16. Drat.)

[Nathan of the FoS]

Darius looks around and curses under his breath. There he went again he thinks sourly. How I am supposed to be his bodyguard without a body to guard?

He's more than a little nonplussed by finding a young woman--who, apparently, the others have met before--alone in a cemetery after nightfall. Stepping back a bit, he scans the graveyard to see if he can see any other signs of life...his brother, for example, or ravening death-cultists.

Perception 7. Oy.

[Nerit]

"Why are you here?" Reine asked suddenly, turning her head to scrutinize Tomas with large, dark eyes. "You're somebody. You don't belong in places like this. Why do you keep coming?"

"You have asked that before, and I think it may be up to the Lady, dear child."

Nerit still watched Reine, her expression kind. Her eyes, however, appraised carefully.

"What has the Lady Ezra told you tonight?" It was odd, after all, for a child to be a) here at night and b) unarmed and unafraid.

Insight: 27

[NeoTiamat]

Leon National Cemetery, Night of April 21st, 770
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Everyone's somebody." Tomas argues gently, looking across the graves again.

"Everyone is someone, child," Lia says, and shrugs. The wizard sets her staff in the crook of her arm as she gives the girl a penetrating look. "Everyone has to be somewhere.

"Liars." Reine said, though without any particular rancor. More weary, perhaps, of all the lies. She shrugged. "The priests at the orphanage said the same thing. We were special and Ezra loved us, and we'd grow up to be somebodies. They were liars too. Most of us didn't get to grow up at all."

"Why are you here?"

"Praying." Reine said. "For people I used to know."

"What has the Lady Ezra told you tonight?"

Tomas wipes his brow, shaking off that disturbing thought and collecting himself. "More specifically, there are people...taking advantage of the plague, Reine. We think they have something that might help us stop them hidden here."

"Someone's taking advantage of the plague?" Reine said, closing her eyes. She sat back on the grass and pulled her knees close, wrapping her arms around them and resting her head on one arm. "They should burn. Ezra says they should all burn in fire and pain. Sinners should all burn."

"You need to burn out the sin." Reine said softly, opening her eyes once more. "Burn it, beat it, cut it out with a knife. That's what Ezra says. The Legions of the Night must be destroyed."

[DocBeard]

Tomas remembers a similar expression on a grown man's face as he struggled to set off a series of fires that would purge the sin and death out of Karg. He glances at Nerit, once, and gets down on one knee.

"I'm sorry you are upset." Tomas says, sincerely, gently putting a hand on her shoulder. "But I think you should be careful. Speaking as a man who has been set on fire more than once, I've found that people following the 'burn out the sickness' line of thinking really underestimate just how hard it is to stop a fire, once it is started."

"Either way, I would feel a lot better knowing that you were not going back to the city alone." Tomas acts as if she were doing him some great service. "Did you come up here with anyone?"

[yalenusveler]

"Their Lair is here" Kerrian finally said, coming out of his somewhat trance like state. "There should be spirits here, Mourning, Regret, Death. But there's next to nothing." He shuddered, looking around. "And I can feel the blight here, it's like a pain in my bones. Here's where they made the things, and probably where they rest."

[The Whistler]

Oh heavens. Celeste's lower lip was quivering. The poor girl looked like she could burst into sympathy tears at any moment, despite having precious little common ground on which to stand with this particular sector of the Dementlieuse class system. On the other hand, that certainly hadn’t stopped Celeste from relating to people before.

Ah—there it was. Mlle. Viardot seized upon the mention of religion like the social stratification-leveler it was, practically keeling forward with the impulse to say something non-denominationally-comforting. “Ah, madamoiselle…! …My compatriot speaks most wisely, gentle miss.” There was a visible effort to keep herself only reasonably impassioned. “After all, does not our Lady leaven her judgment with compassion—yes, even when faced with the most irredeemable of adversaries?”

[lostboy]

"And I can feel the blight here, it's like a pain in my bones. Here's where they made the things, and probably where they rest."

Nicholas makes a face, "in this instance I rather detest being right, ugh looks like its into the lions jaws then..." Although he was being slightly facetious Nicholas didn't look that happy at the prospect, but then a dose of plague does tend to put a crimp on your enthusiasm.

However he still manages to gather himself to address Agale. "Oh and for the record, I applaud you idea of tactics signore, but I would advise against a fire, especially with wet wood. If M.Mauganson is right, then our prime adversaries are unlikely to breathe or require sight to find us. We unfortunatly require both and a big smoke cloud will not aid our endeavours."

He watches the interaction with the child absently, not that Nicholas doesn't care but well he doesnt have much to say to children and to be frank despite his charms he's one of the last people you would want to be the comforting voice for young ears. Still children's graves, religious zealotry, midnight visitis to spooky graveyards, it was all "A" material for future gothic works, which prompts the poet to retrieve his folio and resume scribbling.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Lia's eyes narrow at Reine's words - first at the accusation of being a liar and then some more at the 'burn all the sinners'-speech. Slowly, she takes a step closer to the girl, eyes staring into hers. When she speaks, it is not in Mordentish.

Draconic: "If Ezra doth speak unto thee, child, ask her this. Who do she say I be? And what do she know of those who sin? Do she know their names, their sins, without thy intervention or no?"

[DocBeard]

"Lia!" Tomas snaps; he doesn't speak Draconic but he knows a hiding when he hears one. "Give the girl room to breathe, please!"

[NeoTiamat]

Leon National Cemetery, Night of April 21st, 770
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Draconic: "If Ezra doth speak unto thee, child, ask her this. Who do she say I be? And what do she know of those who sin? Do she know their names, their sins, without thy intervention or no?"

There was no answer forthcoming. Reine merely scuttled away, darting to her feet like a bolt of lightning and huddling near a tombstone several feet further away. Whatever else, despite her scrawny, half-wild state, the young woman could move. She was fast.

“Ah, madamoiselle…! …My compatriot speaks most wisely, gentle miss.” There was a visible effort to keep herself only reasonably impassioned. “After all, does not our Lady leaven her judgment with compassion—yes, even when faced with the most irredeemable of adversaries?”

"But I think you should be careful. Speaking as a man who has been set on fire more than once, I've found that people following the 'burn out the sickness' line of thinking really underestimate just how hard it is to stop a fire, once it is started."

"Such a thing is not to be wished on anyone, Reine," Thierri said, very quietly and gently, as if trying to pet a skittish cat and hoping not to spook it.

"Sinners have to be punished, until they repent." Reine whispered, looking back warily at the lot of you, her entire body coiled like a spring, tense and suspicious. "Sinners need to be punished... they don't deserve redemption without it."

The young girl, just barely a teenager, gazed darkly over the tombstone, keeping the bulk of it between herself and Lia. But even in the darkness, you could see the gentle tears rolling down her face.

"Either way, I would feel a lot better knowing that you were not going back to the city alone." Tomas acts as if she were doing him some great service. "Did you come up here with anyone?"

"Ezra is with me." Reine said. It was not, on the whole, a pious declaration. More by way of a statement of fact. Then, as an afterthought, she added. "If I ask, Mr. Raven will come, but he doesn't like me coming here."

[Rock of the Fraternity]

"And what if a sinner just feels guilty , experiences sincere regret and repents their evil deeds?" Lia asks, her voice soft but... clearly very tightly controlled. "Must they then still be punished?"

[Nerit]

"Mademoiselle!" Nerit cut in sharply, her voice as sharp as glass. She glared Lia's way. "We are not here to debate theology with a child! She came here only to pay respects to the dead. Now, we will have no more upsetting of her conscience, d'accord?"*

The nun's face flared into anger until she looked back to the weeping urchin. "Ma petite fille, it is all right. I will not let anyone here hurt you, I promise."


*Okay?

[Rock of the Fraternity]

"I hope you are not suggesting that it was my intent to harm her, sister," Lia says, her voice coolly polite. "I may not agree with what she was saying, but I am not in the habit of striking down people for that reason alone. And I am most certainly not in the habit of hurting children."

[Nerit]

Nerit glanced back at Lia, more calmly, and said in a low voice, "She has been hurt enough, you know. It would not do well to frighten her now, for little cause or gain."