13th of Saun 720
While his slave, Soraia was tending the sick and wounded near the breach in the Walls in the Gleam, Woe waded through the wreckage of the Shanty. In truth, it looked not much worse for wear. The Shanty always was run-down, as far as he'd seen on arrival to Quacia, and by reputation. Propped up by broken timbers and uneven bricks. Collapsing on itself only to be rebuilt, shabbier and less secure than ever. He looked through the rubble, trying to locate any survivors from the Creep incursion, and the Incendiary brigade.
He stepped over charred wood that'd been gathered by crews, crushing the materials underfoot as they collapsed, denatured by smouldering flames. What was Woe looking for in the midst of such devastation? A subject. A piece of scrap material from which to build a perfect devotee. There would obviously be stumbling on the way. Woe wouldn't be able to rebuild a man on his first try. But if anyone was equipped to try, it was Woe in this scenario.
The groaning and whines of men and women issues from nearby broken tenements, as they suffered festering injuries and disease. Perhaps he should have commanded Soraia to accompany him, but he rather suspected these folk were too far gone for her skills. The smell of necrotic flesh was on the air, like the scent of dead animals. Yes there was little she could do, with her tools and medicines such as they were.
He walked past these miserable scenes, beneath the shadow of walls, half crumbling. Whether the decay was from lack of upkeep from before the siege, or whether the Creep had done it... All the degredation of the Shanty was indistinguishable from a warzone. The truth of it was, whether you were in the Gleam, the Lair, the near Plenty or elsewhere. If folk were anywhere other than the Fortress, they were all in the Shanty now.
Woe sniffed as he arrived at a open cul-de-sac. There were some houses here that were reasonably intact, and sheltered. Breen appeared at his side, whining, and sniffing the air. Do you sense anything in there, Breen?
I'm so hungry master, I think we can drink in there.
Woe nodded to the diri, and strode forward to meet whoever resided within the rubble. He ducked his head beneath a low-hanging threshold. Inside, he saw a collection of miserable people. Draft-dodgers by the age and condition. Yet they were no more spared the horrors of war than anyone else. But where the wounds of those fighting were also on the outside, these victims suffered from spiritual wounds.
Woe crept forward, taking off his hood, and looking from one face to the other. His face was grim, unsmiling, and long as he regarded them with lingering pity. It was a shame what had happened to them, of course.
The gathered together, the three of them. Woe shook his head at the trio, wishing to calm them. "I'm here to help. You saw the fighting?"
The people, Woe now realized they were but children, adolescents and one elder sister. Woe tried on a sympathetic expression. Woe strummed and then hemmed in sympathy to his own tangle. The farther along he got with the discipline of Empathy, the more artificial his reactions became. Sometimes he needed coaxing in order to elicit the ordinary emotional reactions in himself. It was troublesome, but the stronger reactions, especially those that were more alien to his personality were needed sometimes for ordinary communication.
The children shook their heads yes to Woe, at his question. And he smiled grimly. They were far too young to have suffered so much. Yet young enough that recovery was easier to enact. Their lives were measured in years, not decades, and so the time needed to make the fixes wouldn't take half their lifetime, as it might in a middle aged person. But Woe wouldn't need even that long, with the aid of his magic.
"Very well," He uttered, allowing etheric honey to filter through the feelers of his empathic connection. The tendril-like threads seeped deep into the tangle of the most desperate looking child, and searched for signs of hope, of ease, and calm. Emotions that made one more pliant to the suggestion that there was nothing to fear.
He repeated the process with each of them in turn, careful not to overstep his ability in terms of manipulating multiple minds at once. It was while he was rooting around in the youngest boy's tangle, that he noticed something akin to shame. Anger, self-loathing. He wondered at that, such advanced emotions for one so young! He thought this one had some potential as a devotee. "It's not your fault. You would have been slaughtered, and spared not a moment for those who stood to fight. Children are not soldiers." Woe spoke softly, laying a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder. The kid sniffled and squirmed in his elder sister's arms. The sister looked on Woe defensively, as if she feared to be robbed or deprived of her responsibility for her younger siblings.
Woe attempted to reach out to her tangle next, to allow that she would let her guard over her brother down. The tendrils from his etheric form latched onto the threads on the surface of her tangle, feeling for the impressions and shapes therein.
He saw a shape of a spear, horizontal as if thrown aside, on the ground or else held in readiness. Two very distinct possibilities but something Woe could surmise well enough by knowing what was going on here. "Where is the spear?" Woe asked.
They hesitated for many moments. Woe coaxed them, strumming threads of urgency, anxiety in order to prompt them to gesture or move. The boy pointed toward a corner, with much rubble over it. Within the rubble, Woe saw the lower end of the spear's shaft poking out from the rubble. He nodded to the boy and then drew it out, the blood-drenched wood sliding with some effort out of the jam it was in. Woe took it, and pulled it up to vertical height, inspecting the blade. An iron spearhead, simple, but still sharp as he tested it with his finger.
He looked to the boy and held the spear by his side. To the boy, he seemed scary. He sensed intimidation and concern. Was the strange man going to put them down to slaughter now? The elder sister squirmed in her seat, covering the boy more with her arms and body, trying to shield him from the view of Woe. Woe shook his head and strummed a sense of something more elusive in the boy. He strummed the sense of curiosity, outward-facing thirst for adventure and the unknown. It was a more elusive emotion, but once found he embroidered the emotion with the sight of a spear, or a weapon. Woe wanted him to see combat as another child's game, perhaps. Not that he intended to turn the boy into a soldier, far from it. But it couldn't hurt for someone who was growing in importance to having a squire of sorts. A page.
Woe nodded at the boy, without words now communicating his intentions. The boy stood slowly, shoving off his elder sister's embrace. The sister, nonplussed by his sudden rejection, turned to the other child and scowled at Woe. The Mortalborn tried to hem in her mistrust as he spoke, "Don't fear, daughter. I mean no harm to him or you. I mean to uplift him, and give him a place in this city, and this world."
Having said this, he held out a hand for the boy to take. Slow but sure, the boy slid his small hand into Woe's, and the mortalborn walked him out of there. Before leaving from the threshold, however, he turned to face the sister, "I will be sure to send him home from time to time. You are always welcome to follow him." This said, he moved out among the streets.
Within a break, Woe and the boy had arrived at the Breach in the wall, where they found Soraia busily tending the wounded. She wore an apron over a blouse and leather trousers. Practical clothing for the purposes of her task. She looked up when she spotted Woe, and stopped what she was doing after finishing a bandage on the wounded man's arm.
She approached, casting her eyes on the boy for a moment, in concern, before looking up at Woe. She waited.
"I'll need you to bring this boy to my House, Soraia. Make sure he's well taken care of, and show him to a room... For now he can stay in my office, make sure he has a cot and some bedding. He is tired."
Soraia nodded, "Yes, Master... I... Yes." Having said this, she took the boy's hand from Woe, and led him away toward the Walls of the Fortress, on the outskirts of which would be Woe's house.
Woe meanwhile surveyed the carnage, such as it was. If bleeding was devotion, then the Wounded God would be well nourished.
