Talk of Gods and Goddesses

[lydamorehouse]

 So, mostly we continued our dungeon crawl in-game, but we managed to have several side conversations about gods and fate.

===

February 16

In the Sewers of

Brendlefort, Kingdom of Shira

Dearest sister,

I thought I would feel more when The Caravan finally confronted Riccardus in the basements of his establishment. 

I expected to regret using my blade against a half-Elfish brother-of-blood. Yet when the cutting was done, I felt only pity and a kind of… emptiness. He called out to me, Ave. That duplicious cat of his had left him with the impression that I’d be quick to run to  his side. Yet, when Riccardus said that he thought I should be standing with him against The Caravan and the rest, I found myself with nothing to say. I had no response but that the only way out for him was through us.

The abominations we faced, Ave. They might have been Fey enough to be turned by Papa Bernard’s hand, but they were… not…. No, they were far more of  something else, something putrid and unholy. 

Riccardus did this to them. Knowingly. 

Captain Thompkins’ guards asked us to bring Riccardus in alive, which we managed--albeit only barely. I carried his body out of that foul place, myself, and watched as they clapped manicales on him and dragged him, still unconscious, to prison. 

I slept soundly and without guilt or remorse.

In the morning, when we went to give our full report to the captain, Thompkins refused to let us speak with Riccardus. She has some plans of her own, it seems, to pry information out of him and didn’t want us muddying the waters, as were. It’s probably just as well. I’m uncertain what I’d say to him. Though I do find myself churning over several details that don’t add up--at least not to my mind. 

The foremost among them is: Why?  Why these horrible experimentations? 

When I spoke this question aloud to my colleagues, the ever sensible Theophina suggested that perhaps it was simply a matter of manufacturing soldiers, a numbers game, if you will. But, because so much of my own connection to this storyline centers around the suspicion granted to me by simply being an Elf, I could hardly forget that Elves joined the fight on the side of the Queen Below in the last war. Surely, if the Queen could make her case to reasonable people once, she could do so again. 

It is true that Captain Philip and his soldiers forced the Queen Below into retreat. Perhaps that crushing blow has made it difficult for the forces of the Fey Realm to recruit the local Elves back into the Queen’s service once again. But if her cause was reasonable--something I feel I simply must assume, since reasonable people chose to die for it--then what is the value of allying with something so… repulsive that anything less than a zealot like Riccardus would turn away in horror?

I know that you and I disagree about the cruel nature of the Fey themselves, but this thing we fought, Ave, this Soul Brood Mother or whatever it was called…. It was a very different kind of awful. 

I wish that before wizards tear his mind out or whatever it is Captain Thompkins has planned for the poor, misguided sod that I could ask Riccardus what he was thinking, what he thought he was doing, and whether or not it was truly in her service and by her command that he did it.

I also wish I could be there to see his face when the captain informs him that the portal to the FeyWild that Riccardus thought his Queen had provided him was nothing more than a high level illusion. Worse, it seemed clear that the Queen Below never intended to keep whatever bargain she’d struck with Riccardus, as behind this illusion were pots of Fey plants that sprayed a deadly poison everywhere. She clearly meant not only to deny him a retreat, but also to murder him.

But, again… why?

Why squander the faith of such a zealot? 

I can almost hear your admonishing voice. Yes, yes, I remember that the Fey are fickle. This is not terribly unlike them--to lead someone on in such a way, only to pull the rug out for no other reason than that it amuses them. However, she is planning a war, Ave. Surely, if Theophina is correct and soldiers are in such short supply, you would not waste a single one of them.  Especially not The very one providing such a steady stream of drones, the warped warriors for the cause!

It makes no sense.

.

Perhaps I am a fool to try to assign meaning to anything the Fey or ArchFey do. I have, after all, been wrong about so many things. For instance, I have been laboring under a misapprehension that the ring I wear is the very love token that the Queen is missing, for which she sacrifices many scouts to attempt to reclaim. It seems I am as much of a dupe as Riccardus, as he wore one exactly the same. Unlike mine, his ring came off easily. Perhaps the one I wear will, too, when I am as near to death as Riccardus was. At least now that I know I wear a sham, I won’t be so foolish as to assume it is as valuable as the lives of my companions.  

I still feel very much adrift. Of no surprise to either you or I, Mother never returned my letter begging for guidance. I know not where the Travorian Matriarch, Kingmaker and Duchess of Shadow and Spire stands on the matter of the Queen Below. It will not shock me either if, no matter which side I end up on, it will be, in her estimation, the wrong one. 

Ah, if only I still had Aiyu to talk to.

I know, I know. That cat is as much part of the problem as any of the rest.  Still, he was a good listener.  

It’s funny how much, even though we are longer apart than we have ever been, I can hear your responses to my complaints with such clarity. This time, I’m certain that you would be encouraging me to make friends with The Caravan and talk to them about my conflicted loyalties. I swear I’m trying… in my own way to forge more connections. I mean, the Paladin scares me a bit, now that I have heard his command to Turn more than once and felt it echoing in my core. However, as we trudged through the slime and the muck, I had somewhat of a foray into philosophy with the Iounian monk, Grigor. As you know very well, Mother didn’t raise us to look to any specific god for guidance, but rather to loosely court them all, much as she does her own earthly political alliances. And, so I asked Grigor a bit about how Ioun worked--how the goddess moves through the world. It seems Ioun does not judge knowledge as good or evil, but rather compels her followers to pursue any and all of it, regardless of its nature. I would think this would be a rather amoral way to view the world, but Grigor is by far one of the more insistent when it comes to the preservation of life. He is forever attempting to talk our enemies out of their wicked ways.

This bodes well for me, perhaps, should I succumb to my darker impulses in regards to the FeyWilds.

Bellamey will cut me down without hesitation, however. Not that I’ll see it coming.

Papa Bernard seems willing to use his prodigious faith to have my back in a fight, but I have zero doubt that he’d strike directly for my heart, should it ever waver. He is after all not only a Paladin, but Paladin of the Ancients.

Theophina, Zavala, and Nyris are wildcards. At a guess, Theophina would do whatever is the most practical and wise. Zavala… my sense of him is that my fate would depend on the whim of his Goddess. Nyris will follow in whichever direction the Changebringer sends Zavala. 

It’s difficult to know the mind of a Goddess or which choice will be wisest, so it’s impossible to know if I’d be outnumbered or not. I wish I knew the heart of the Queen Below. Is she simply a craven villain willing to go to any means to win a plot of land in the Prime Material, or is she someone of merit that other Elves once listened to and followed?  I’m so conflicted, Ave, that I even left an offering on the altar of The Raven Queen whose secret shrine we uncovered in our underground ramblings. Perhaps, thanks to this small kindness, Death will smile upon me and guide my hand in my time of need. 

Once again, I am uncertain if that’s a good thing or a bad one.

Your brother,

Idyril

 

Comments

[pameladean]

I'm not a gamer and haven't said much if anything for these entries, but for some reason I particularly like this letter. P.

[lydamorehouse]

Thank you!

I feel like I have finally hit on Idyril's voice in this letter. Like, I never intended any of this to be any kind of writing beyond a fun way to keep track of what happened during a gaming session, so it's not like I'd been putting huge amounts of energy into the usual considerations of narrative voice or whatever, but suddenly here he is. So, that's nice. Hopefully, this won't be a flukeand I'll be able to write him the same going forward.

[pameladean]

That makes sense. I'd been reading with anyway interest but not real engagement and suddenly it the engagement was the.

I love that moment with a character, when they step out of the shadows.

[pameladean]

Somebody should have stopped autocorrect in its tracks long ago.

Abstract interest, suddenly the engagement was there.

Yeesh.

P.