While stuck in a rowboat with Morley is always an exciting conversational experience. I'll spare you all his snide quips as I did backbreaking labor for hours to save us from dying all alone in the sea. He has no appreciation for the sacrifices I make to keep us both alive. It almost makes me sad I saved him from a fate worse than death (but no worse than he truely deserves). Anyway I'm sure you don't read to hear about my lack of morality and saving monsters (or maybe you do, maybe you're a monster, or Morley himself reading after he killed me with a poisoned book or something, yes poisoned maybe I eat the book DON'T JUDGE ME!)
Back to the topic at hand, the War in Ronerawth. Much to my surprise when Morley and I finally came ashore it was over, and the good side actually won (well good is a matter of opinion you'll see why in a bit). I guess freeing the shorties, killing his number one advisor, and my other acts of random violence hurt the current Emperor in a way I could never have predicted. Of course there were military blunders, the fact that the Church of the Fire God's people literally live for war and death and they were fighting, and that the emperor was at best a puppet of some dark godling in a sewer under the city probably factored into it. But still clearly I won the war almost single handidly and no one knew that except for me.
Ronerawth in typical fashion didn't exactly do away with their emperor of course, or their military, it simply changed hands. A new more lenient emperor was chosen from the none Fire God members (they are not a theocracy nor do they long to be) members of the opposing political group were executed publically as were their family members (yes even the children, I asked about that during the ceremony and I was told "Todays Children are tomorrows enemy" reliable logic, but it'll take some time for me to get the sight of a three year old girl lead to stand on a block and get shot with the rest of her family out of my mind). The ceremony was macabre in a lot of ways, during the execution beautiful music was song from a choir, it was almost a religious ceremony with the pomp being exercised.
After the executions came the exiles, yes Ronerawth does not take kindly to those who rebel against her, even if it was for the right reasons. The entire Church of The Fire God was banned from the country, their places of worship to be demolished by the government. Seemed a bit unfair for a group that helped depose a tyrant, but they didn't complain, and were allowed to keep their lives so they at least had that. I was also told it was during this conflict that the Sins of the Fire God were created, an organization within the Church that trained young men into Assassins (I rather like the shortened sin, as its a nice double definition for someone who is a murderer). During the Ronerawth conflict they were mainly older members who knew their way around death, but later conflicts would see the younger members go on to be horrific dead eyed murderers, even evolving into antimagical hitmen. Even now I know one of their members who is terrifying to me, his very life one of horrible, one day I'll write of this guy, and it will chill you, unless he's reading this, in which nicest guy I ever met by far.
For my and Morley's part in this conflict we slinked away to be in the shadows like we belong. Morley returned to the lands of the Red Hand, cursing the ground of Ronerawth and vowing to never return (a total lie and he knew it). Me I negotiated the quiet release of my library using the money I'd aquired from Fiz (hidden near my horse before I board that stupid ship, no way I'm losing that money). The books were written in weirdness anyway and were set to be destroyed as part of Aloitious's stuff, so it wasn't too expensive. With my library in tow I went back to help Rolak rebuild, I say help, but in reality it was because it was a fairly large town that had a lot of property suddenly coming on the market for really cheap prices, on account of it being destroyed in the conflict.
Thankfully no one knew me, they had heard of me, or had heard of a the hero or Rolak, but it wasn't me. The stories blew me way out of proportion (even more than I do here) and so it was easy for me to disappear as just a small shop keeper with a large library. I decided on textiles, clothing and the like, because I was good at sewing and no one really bothers tailorers with needing help taking on ancient evils (well normally, I'll get to that). For the first time in a long time I felt home again. I had property and thats all that mattered to me, well that and making a profit, stores don't fund themselves! Now if only I could have avoided the trouble that came looking for me, but you know how things go. The more safe you feel, the more in danger you really are. Well for me, everyone else its actually safe, such is the life of a Lorentino, is it any surprise I'm the only one?
No comments:
Post a Comment