Open Chronicles Been Called Worse By Better

[Harrier]

Cerak At'Thul - the Black Bay. Notorious for slavery, filth, remoteness, and really excellent street meat. I gnawed some kind of fatty lizard off a skewer a chunk at a time. Spices stung my mouth, and I washed it all down with harsh rum. A fine sun rose high as I wandered the crooked roads. The wind smelled like fruit and the sea.

I was born and raised in civilized Elbion, and I miss it, I do - but Cerak is heaven.

Now, granted, I'd probably find it a little less easy to live here if I didn't have a skeleton with a rusty cutlass walking four steps behind me at all times. There are perks to doing what I do, especially here. It's nice to find a place where they ostracize you out of just plain fear, no disgust or contempt involved. I could get used to this, I said to myself, and I meant it. And yes, I'm surrounded by various kinds of human misery - but it's the same in any big city, isn't it. Isn't it just.

 

[Kasim Areth]

This place was filthy.

Kasim wasn't entirely sure how he had ended up here, or why he had chosen to stay. The world of Arethil was filled with a dozen cities of note; Alliria, Belgrath, hell even Molthal...but Cerak At'Thul was where he found himself now.

The Jester couldn't have said why he'd boarded that ship, couldn't have said why he hadn't just gone back on board as soon as they arrived. Yet here he was, sitting in a filthy in, with a filthy mug, surrounded by filthy people who seemed to more than enjoy his presence within their midst. "THE DRAGON'S ROAR SHOOK THE VERY WALLS!"

His voice boomed through the tavern as the story continued.

Everyone inside seemed to pay him close attention. Pirates, Smugglers, Murderers, all of them seemed to enjoy a good story, and who was he to deny them?

"The King then took up his sword..." Kasim continued, his words a spell that seemed to consume all around him.

 

[Harrier]

Kasim Areth

Places like Cerak prefer bombastic entertainment. Dogfights. Knife throwing. Aggressive striptease.

Storytelling.

My skeleton and I drifted into a bar totally devoid of right angles. A bardic type was halfway through some kind of performance, or maybe he was just relaying the latest news. Then again, six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. I heard the term 'infotainment' back at the College once upon a time, and it stuck with me. The man with the shiny mask and the nice butt seemed infotaining. I wondered what king had been out to kill which dragon. I'd never seen a dragon. Elven queen once - probably the closest equivalent.

I found a nook with my skeleton, finished off my rum, and chowed down on the komodo kebab in earnest while the tale went on.

 

[Kasim Areth]

Kasim continued his tale, weaving the words to a crux as the crowd around him seemed to be drawn further and further in. "His blade struck against the vile beasts scales again and again, each time chipping away..."

The story was not an honest one, though nobody here would know it. The origin of the tale was not shrouded in any mystery, and any scholar would know it as an altered version of the King of Uroth, a small city that had once existed on the Eastern Continent. Uroth had been beset by a Dragon, and it's King had bravely attempted to defend his city.

In the end the King had been less than successful, dying within the maw of the Dragon with his castle burnt to a crisp.

History often didn't make for grand stories, and thus Kasim's version was a tad more...embellished.

"They fought for hours...DAYS!" A gasp from the uneducated crowd. "Then finally, The dragon reared back, pulling the flames from his lungs."

The Jester had no idea if Dragons really could breath fire, but it was a common myth. "But in that moment the King flung his sword, striking at the heart of the beast and burying his blade within it's flaming maw."

Silence fell in the bar, and then sudden thunderous cheers.

 

[Harrier]

Kasim Areth

The ending was a little pedestrian for my taste. Dare I say it, lowbrow. It rang a bell, though: maybe I'd heard it before, back at the College in Elbion. Something about a burning castle - had he mentioned a burning castle?

Regardless, the crowd was drunk enough to love it. A musclebound orc promptly threw his own sword and split an unfortunate dartboard in half, to general approval. I just knew the story was going to bug me, so I found a vacant corner seat and pulled out a small bundle. I mixed a little ink from my ink-stick using rum instead of water, then set down smudged paper and a jade pen. The pen shivered.

"I'm trying to think of a story," I said quietly, mouth half-full of fatty lizard. I explained the details as well as I remembered them, plus the jester's details. The pen started writing on its own.

 

[Rob Yew]

"ZOUNDS! What a blow!"

Roared Godfrey and pounded his flagon quite heartily upon the table with enough vigor 'twas a wonder neither broke. Mane of golden hair framing a rigid jawline and a smile fierce as the sun, the Vel Anir native looked a statue come to life. Quite out of place amid the vagabonds, in his gleaming maille and white surcoat, emblazoned with some red winged beast or other.

He tossed back a cape that might have once been a bright crimson, but had seen the dust of too many roads since, and sat down. In an instant, he drained his flagon and called for another.

 

[Kasim Areth]

Kasim nodded himself as half a dozen people inside of the small Tavern said something unintelligible. The story wasn't really his best one, and neither was the performance for that matter, but apparently that was of little importance to anyone here in Cerak At'Thul.

He supposed that these men and women were just glad they didn't have to stab each other for entertainment for a day. His lips thinned at the thought, and with a small hop Kasim moved off the table that he had been standing on. There were some more cheers, calls for an encore, but Kasim waved his hands. "Please, please!"

Kasim called out.

"I need a drink!" There was some laughter, but the words hadn't been meant as a joke. Talking for nearly an hour was rough on the throat.

Without another word Kasim pressed himself through the crowd and headed towards the bar. An ale would have to do, only a complete fool would try to drink the water here.

 

[Gwythiel Faenwe]

From her forest home around Fal'Addas, there was little Gwythiel could imagine as a more different place than the city of Cerak At'Thul. There, she had been surrounded by life and nature, learning at the knees of Singers and watching as various other professions honed their craft with the focus that few races aside from Elves were truly capable of. Here, she was surrounded by stone, flesh, and emotion. She was at the same time excited for the learning opportunity, and disgusted by the filth she stepped over in the streets on the way from the docks.

She was walking somewhat aimlessly, letting the flow of the city move her as it would, when she heard a mild applause from the door of a building to her left. The door closed behind an exiting patron, and the sound went away. Intrigued, Gwythiel stepped to the door and opened it. Within she saw a tavern, like many she had seen along the road from Fal'Addas. She slipped inside, closing the door behind her as she looked around. Her eyes widened as they fell upon a skeleton standing behind a woman working with a pen and parchment, then moved onto the cheering crowd around the victorious Orc who was holding aloft his sword and a half of the stricken dart board.

She couldn't help but grin as she took a seat at a vacant table. She was mildly hungry, but was more than willing to watch the people as she tried to figure out how to order food and drink.

 

[Harrier]

Gwythiel Faenwe Thronebreaker Kasim Areth

The place went back to its usual uproar. I let the jade pen finish writing on its own, animated by the spirit that possesses it. Then I spent a minute reading, watching the characters in the room, and chewing on the last shreds of my fatty lizard kebab. I'm not one for drink but I regretted my lack of rum. The fresh-yet-grimy breeze through the door seemed to call for it. So did the sunlight through the holes in the roof.

Then again, I was in a bar, wasn't I.

With a barnacle-encrusted skeleton in tow, I headed for the source of libations. I ended up beside the bard with the cute butt and the mask.

"Always good to hear news from Uroth, no matter how long it takes to cross the world." I caught the baekeep's eye - not easily, considering the skeleton. "Rum, double."

 

[Kasim Areth]

Harrier

Kasim was creeped out.

Mostly because of the surroundings of the Inn and the person that had just walked up to him. His instinct was just to give a polite nod and then walk away, but he felt even that would somehow offend these people enough to get him stabbed, thus he took a sip of his drink.

"Well." The Jester began. "It's one of the more adventurous tales."

Kasim mused. "Plus it's old enough that most people have forgotten the truth of it."

A shrug rolled over his shoulders. Kasim had first picked up the story on the eastern side of Liadain near Alliria. An old man had been entertaining a gaggle of children with it, not unlike what Kasim had been doing in this bar. It was surprising really how much that reflected his experience.

 

[Harrier]

The guy came across as closer to wary than interested, and that was normal. If I had a coin for every time I've creeped someone out, I sure wouldn't be in Black Bay sipping rum of dubious provenance. Well, not that dubious, really. These islands are full of slave plantations growing sugarcane. That's why I came down this way. There's good money and good satisfaction in a necromancer's work here. Sometimes they even dovetail: a week before I met Kasim Areth, I told a plantation master that the only way to de-haunt his mansion was to do right by the families of slaves he'd killed. It wasn't the only way -- I could have just bound the ghosts and walked away -- but even I have my ethical limits.

All that to say, I'm used to being an outsider and reaping an outsider's share of welcome. I appreciate more when I find more, but that's not often.

I pulled out a fat silver coin.

"Got any ghost stories? True ones?"