• Solo • Words Like Wildfire (Part I)

[Sam Rasvima]

25th of Vhalar, 722

Sam was not a morning person. He was nowhere in the realm of a morning person. If he had his way, the trial would not start until his eyes first opened of their own accord, the rest of Idalos on pause until such a moment.

Yet, here the priest was, with a fresh cup of bitter brew steaming in his hands, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and, with more than dash of malice, greeting the morning rays as Dithlánis began its ascent through the sky. The mountain air was cool, and, as always with Sirothelle, tinged with slight scent of smoke and ash as the Heart of the World burned without respite. Sam breathed deep that air, letting it center him in the midst of the hated morning and fill him with energy.

When that didn't work, Sam took a sip of the bitterbrew. True to its name, the taste was sharp and dark, but it softened his anger and cleared his mind of slumber. It gave him the needed focus to push himself away from the threshold of his home, from the enticing whispers of his soft, warm bed, and into the streets of Sirothelle. A hated action, but a necessary one.

His feet beat against the stonewrought ground of the city as he clipped along at a hurried pace. There were many homes to visit today, and only so few hours before work shifts began. He wished there was a better way of reaching his congregants, but, despite the still-derelict state of many aspects of the city, the cycle work spun ever onward. Faldrun might've been dead, but that wouldn't stop the pursuit of profits as people grasped at some sense of normalcy.

Hard to think about whose no longer in the sky when you had a quota to meet, Sam supposed.

It was a quick enough walk to his first stop. That was one of the few advantages of the Slums, with so many people piled on top each other a neighbor was never far away. Now if only their streets were clean, food was plenty, and public health, mental and physical, were not evidently crashing at record paces. Despite all of his and his congregants efforts, screams of immolation could still be heard at night from the Ashen Alleys.

Hopefully this'll be a step in ending that.

Sam stood before the door of his neighbor, hand hovering at the ramshackle door. The House of the High King would not help them. Fine. They'd help themselves. They'd do the one thing that all tyrants, churches, and oppressors feared.

Organize.

Sam knocked.

[Sam Rasvima]

"Hello, might I-"

Slam.

"I'm sorry to bother-"

Slam.

"My name is Sam and-"

Slam.

The priest had become intimately familiar with the sound of doors shutting in his face as the first break of his trial ticked by. It was still early in the morn, and early enough that his neighbors did not have the energy to politely refuse his inquiries. He'd be frustrated if he didn't share their annoyance. A knock at the door, or whatever ramshackle plywood resembled it, this early in the day? In the Slums? Sam would've done the same thing in their same place. Though, he would have sprinkled in a bit more cursing.

Sam took a moment to breath after the last refusal, steadying the subtle throb his head had taken on. He needed to change strategy, because it was clear that door-to-door would not work in this area. In his little corner of the Slums, perched near the Ashen Alleys, most people new his face and his mission.

Here, however? Edging close to the slave pens, where a wrong look might end with a knife smiling in-between ones ribs? He was just another face seeking kindness where there was none left to give.

Sam leaned against the ash-stained wall of building which had just rejected him, not caring if the detris smudged his already black robes. His people, like the building, had seen better trials than this. While the Slums were never particularly well maintained, it had only slipped into further disrepair after Faldrun's Fall. That, coupled with the Council's either refusal or ignorance of the issue, had led to the scared, shattered, and broken bodies which inhabited Sirothelle's poorest district. They were still so shaken by that trauma that even charity and an invitation to community seemed another knife hovering before them.

So the question remained: how to get a community to organize that didn't even trust one of their own?

Sam's eyes cut across the tightly packed alleys of the Slums and towards the slave pens. He saw those bodies, stacked to each other in neat little rows. Stripped bare of anything but rags to cover their modesty. Chained to each other as they rested before their drug work began. Desperate faces, hungry for hope. A captive audience. An idea struck him. A dangerous, terrible, poorly thought-out idea.

How does one get a community to organize when it doesn't trust itself? Expand the definition of community, and cause a big enough scene that no one can ignore the message.

[Sam Rasvima]

Sam ducked through the connected alleyways that spaced between the stacked households of the Slums, making careful progress towards the Slave Pens. The ramshackle walls marked his neighborhood, but only a fool would drop their guard in this space of poverty and desperation. Though, as Sam's half-formed plan percolated in his mind, he may have counted himself amidst the ranks of the foolhardy soon enough.

To court the support of the slaves, the only class below him that held even less sway and less rights, was to court disaster. They had no wealth to toss his way. No status to tempt new believers. They did not even have time of their own that they could spend in his support. All they had were their voices and their discontent.

Sam hoped that sound and fury would be enough.

As Sam approached, the state of destitution that his community found itself in paled in comparison to the horror of the chains. Tight-bound around the necks, the wrists, and the legs of even the smallest species, Sam could see the skin rubbed raw peek out from under the irons. Bodies huddled together with torn rags so scant he count the ribs up their hunger-pained torsos. Sam felt his stomach turn, first at their situation and then at his ignorance. So rapt was he in holding his community together, that he ignored the pains of his neighbors a scant few miles from his home.

And as quick as the word formed in Sam's mind, that is what they became. Not property, not tools of the state, but neighbors. People. The twisted horror of what his society had abided by, what he had abided by, sank with sickly weight in his stomach. He had seen slaves before, of course. One could not live in Sirothelle without seeing those branded and bound that made up the drudge workers and servants of the Aukari. But city slaves were dressed and perfumed. Some were, beaten, yes, but one always knew to turn their eyes at how another citizen managed their property.

Here, however, the suffering of these people was not hidden by such paltry, palatable, disguises. Here, there suffering was shown in truth. It was shown by their whip-scarred skin. By their chain-chaffed arms. By their sunken eyes and filth-stain garments. Seeing them as they are now, Sam could not know how he ignored the injury that he and his people had done for so long. Perhaps he was, as so many Aukari are, blinded by the fear of stepping out of line. Rapt in fear that the ticking fire-bomb that was their soul would set off if he made even the slightest error. That their wrathful god would set the spark that ignited him, melt his skin like wax and leave nothing but char and ash were he once stood.

But their wrathful god had died, and buried with him was any excuse they had left to act in cruelty. Any excuse Sam had left to turn a blind eye. To apply his compassion selectively. More than that, Sam had stared into the flames as his people burned during their Immortal's Fall. He was at the Ashen Alleys when they overflowed with bodies and bones. Sam no longer feared the flame. He no longer feared liberation.

In that moment, as he stared full-force into the horrors that he and his people helped perpetuate, Sam realized a simple truth. That only by freeing each other, by repenting for their sins, could the Aukari be free from their past. Be free from tyranny.

Sam no longer questioned if sound and fury would be enough, because the rage that burned his bones would spread. He would make sure it did, until the flames of change blackened the House of the High King.

Dithlánis at his back, Sam stepped into the Slave Pens.

[Pig Boy]

RPG Rewards:

Sam Rasvima

• Renown: 5
• XP: 10
• Knowledges:
  • Politics: x2
  • Tactics: x3
  • Meditation: x1

Link to Review Request on the Forum: viewtopic.php?p=195430#p195430

Skill Review: All Skills used appropriately to PC's level

Notes: The immediate set up for this scene is very understandable. A man not being a morning person, and wishing for the day to start no sooner than he willed his eyes open. It easily places us in the shoes of Sam from the get go and gets us invested nicely.

Having heard of this ‘bitter brew’ I wonder what kind of gnarly coffee the Aukari of Sirothelle have. I bet it’s some of the best, given they live on the slopes of a volcanic mountain. That’s gotta be a thing I’d love to see devved, Aukari Coffee Beans!

I really enjoy Sam’s journey here, from door to door. It’s very emblematic of the closed-off and paranoid nature of the aukari in general. Particularly those who served Faldrun and now are left orphaned by his death.

I love that he’s trying to forge a new way for them, and am definitely routing for him in that pursuit. Good luck and good writing!

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding this review, feel free to PM. Enjoy your rewards!