Mercy
A howl fraught with pain and fear cut through the hot, still desert air. Tirjin stirred in his sleep, tossing off the thin, pattern-woven blanket that covered him; careful not to let it fall into the smoldering ashes of the fire. He opened his eyes to a clear night sky above him and the constellation known as the King was visible directly overhead. He blinked the gritty black sand of the Whispering Wastes from his eyes as the cry of some small animal echoed through the dunes around him. The air was thick with the pungent scent of set-in rot; something sickly sweet swirled softly into his nose as he came to. The smell of that wretched mist known as The Gloom.
Standing from his sleeping mat, his long and flowing, white morning robe whipped around him as the wind swept across the barren desert. The Sister Moons, Miccaro and Desolis, greeted him as they crested the rounded top of the sandy hill infront of him. They were both full - tonight would be a good night of travel under their combined light, he thought. Another strained bark came from beyond the ebony dune nearest to him, and he quickly snatched up his standard-issue saber which had sunken into the sand next to his sleeping arrangements.
Tirjin set off into the brightly lit night to find the source of this sound, hoping it was still savable. As he walked up the dark knoll, the whimpers grew louder and more hoarse by the moment. Upon reaching the top, he could see it roughly two hundred feet below in the wind-swept sand valley between the dunes - a desert jackal. The animal laid on its side and seemed to struggle for air as most of its neck had swollen to almost twice its natural size. Its torso was littered with dark purple and black pustules that contrasted with the matted and bloodied brown fur around them. Bones were visible on many parts of its body, and much of the flesh on its legs looked to have sloughed off in reeking, inky heaps of rot where it laid. What remained of its eyes had a pinpoint of a familiar dark purple directly behind the pupils.
He knew the animal was beyond saving, even from the best druids that still clung to the old ways. Reluctantly, he undid the lock of the saber's scabbard on his hip and drew the blade with a soft scrape of metal on wood. The polished steel caught the moonlight and it shined onto the black sands around him, illuminating the dying jackal at his boots. When he readied the blade in his hands, he caught a reflection of himself; a blue-scaled dragonborn with a central, broken and jagged horn on his snout stared back at him with piercing yellow eyes. He shook his head to clear the memory of whom he used to be, of what he used to do, and prepared a swift strike to put the dying creature out of its misery.
Tirjin continued his moonlit journey across the desert of blackened sand after he gathered the meager items from his encampment. The stench of Gloom was growing as the night progressed, and small puffs of black smoke began to whisper over the tops of dunes. He knew it would be upon him soon, and began to pick up his pace. Roughly a mile infront of him, barely visible under the Sister Moons' light, was an old ruin; it looked like an ancient temple of some sort, or what was left of one, anyway. He decided the derelict structure would be the best place to stow away and hide from the repulsive, roiling, rot-ridden fog.
The crumbling building began to finally give up more details as he approached, stepping over cracked and weathered pillars that had long since been buried beneath the sands. The temple was once much larger, he thought, as he gazed upon the massive statues standing on either side of the moldered entryway. The stone figures towered over him, featureless thanks to the endless sanding they received from the howling gales that plagued the Whispering Wastes. The only discernable detail Tirjin was able to make out was they each held what looked to be a scroll that unfolded and curled down to where their knees used to have been carved.
From the apex of the decayed archway leading to the inner sanctum, a skull biting down on a sand-worn, marble scroll gazed lopsidedly from its mount. Its two, obsidian eyes glimmered in the bright light of the Sister Moons, and they seemed to almost track Tirjin as he moved. A shiver ran up his spine, a cold and jarring shiver reserved for those that knowingly enter places that have not been touched or visited in over a millennium. As he crossed the looming entryway to the interior of the ancient ruin, he felt the sands under his feet give way to a dark and once-polished stone which was once quarried from some place far from there, both in time and place.
The air within the remnants of this temple, almost no more than a cairn, weighed heavy on him with every breath. Every inhalation brought the taste of ancient papyrus paper with it, and he felt his tounge physically dry. He imagined this place was not only abandoned by those once faithful to whatever god this place was devoted to, but by the very god they worshipped within these now-empty halls. Lining the walls of the space were bare bookshelves, hewn from a similar dark stone as the floor. A few of the shelves hosted long-abandoned items, a handful of dry-rotted books and scrolls, and a couple were home to forlorn bird nests with little more than a few molted feathers left as a reminder. At the end of the inner sanctum, resting on the floor and leaning on a crumbling stone lectern, was a weary halfling man surrounded by various tools and a single, broken, mechanical leg.
The halfling's attention darted up from the artificial limb he was working on, and Tirjin was able to take in his visage within the dimly lit chamber. The small humanoid wore a kind face, with gentle green eyes spread just a little too far apart. His nose was slightly bulbous at the tip, and his lips pressed into a thin smile upon seeing another living being. He wore a dingy overcoat and thick denim pants that seemed to have oil stains streaking across them in various directions. The diminutive man calmly placed a few tools down and extended his singular leg out, somewhat more relaxed than he had been a moment prior. Pressing his back against the cold lectern, the halfling spoke out across the chamber to the blue-scaled dragonborn.
“Taking refuge too, friend? I'm Norum.” He extended a hand from his seated position.
It took an uncomfortably long moment for Tirjin's instilled nature to finally relent. Every drill, every training, every damnable seminar echoed through his mind telling him the pint-sized man sitting infront of him wasn't real, wasn't alive. The Primum dictated he was a monster corrupted by The Gloom, and everything he says or does is only to get those of pure draconic blood to join them in the mists. He closed his eyes and shook his head with a heavy sigh before letting his travel pack impact the ground with an unceremonious *thud*. When reason finally returned, he looked to Norum with golden eyes that cut through the dim light.
“Tirjin,” he said.
He seemed to ignore the halfling's niceties as he sat next to his pack and removed the saber from his belt. He held the dark blue scabbard out in front of him and stared at it. To think he would be discharged from the Prismatic Host and exiled from Hope's Cradle for simply showing mercy sickened him. I will tell the world about the lies the Primum spread, he thought. The halfling's hand dropped when he saw Tirjin grimace at the weapon, and he nodded towards the vagabond knowingly.
“Heavy hearts lead to heavy feet, friend. What troubles you?” Norum picked up a small screwdriver and scooted the metalic leg closer towards him to continue his work.
“If you were tasked with killing an outsider, an alien, a threat that looked like your brother, would you?” he asked.
Silence washed over the chamber as Norum contemplated the loaded question. The squeaking of metal screws being turned drifted through the chamber while they both introspectively thought to themselves. A faint scent of something sickly sweet began to creep into the temple as the shafts of white moonlight, beaming down from the holes in the roof, began to dim. The Gloom had caught up to the travel-worn pair and began to whip and wail outside of the crumbling walls. Faint, shambling footfalls of Silhouettes followed shortly after, and the two dared not to speak.
A few minutes had passed after the arrival of the black mist before either of them managed to say anything, fearing that even the smallest of sounds may attract attention. Norum finally managed a meek "No" with a brief shake of his head as he worked on his leg. Another moment passed and the displaced appendage glowed a dim blue as several runes came to life along its length. Their glow died down as the halfling locked it back in place somewhere inside of the empty pants' leg. Servomotors and gears sparked to life in the joint of his robotic leg as he tried it out, making sure his work was complete.
Tirjin had taken to polishing his saber, seemingly waiting for something to happen. He was waiting for some undead abomination to straggle into the sanctum of the abandoned temple and blow their cover. That moment never came, though. In its stead, a soft, hollow giggle rang out through the fog that now surrounded the ancient building, echoing off of its dusty walls. The footfalls that came from the march of undead outside seemed to come to a complete standstill. The insincere snicker began to grow louder; the giggles turned to laughter, and the laughter shifted into a deafening cacophony of cackles. The blue-scaled dragonborn looked back to the halfling with an expression carved from purified cobalt that screamed they needed to run. With a heavy sigh, he broke the silence between them.
“Norum, I know we just met, but... go. I will hold whatever it is off long enough for you to get to safety.” he said, giving a knowing grin. “You said it yourself; a heavy heart would make for heavy feet.”
He nodded quickly to the dragonborn, tracing the fluid motion in which he had stood and sauntered towards the main entrance with a freshly polished blade in one hand. He swiftly gathered the few tools he had and threw them in a patched courier's bag as he got to his own feet. He turned his back towards the sounds, the dragonborn, and the mist, and began to briskly make his way to a hole in the back wall of the sanctum. Just before he lept out, he glanced over his shoulder one last time and caught a glimpse of the vagabond with his arms spread out to either side, seemingly greeting something at the entrance.
Laughter filled the air of the main chamber, and it was almost suffocating. The dark mist swirled in from the entrance, bringing with it the icy-cold winds and the stench of rot that were characteristic of The Gloom. Far beyond Tirjin's reach were two, dark purple pinpoints of light that seemed to watch him from the fog. Stepping into the dimmed moonlight, he saw it; a face bearing heavy cracks in jagged patterns that were illuminated by the barely luminescent purple glow of its eyes. Its nose had long since withered away, leaving little more than two, boney holes where it should have been. The mouth present on its visage was twisted into a nightmarish mockery of what was once an ever-present smile. To either side of its head were long, slender ears that drooped under their own weight. The entity wore attire that exuded utmost authority - that of a long-dead monarch.
It parted the black, paper thin lips that rested at the bottom of its face and began to speak in a voice that dropped and crawled along the ground as if it were animated lead. “Bow, boy. Have you no manners?!”
Tirjin stood, sword pointed towards the monstrosity that strode into the temple, unflinching. He scowled at the remark and thought back to all of the previous times in which he heard the exact same thing from a superior. His grip tighted around the sword's handle as he continued the challenging stance. As he looked up at the figure that towered over him by some ten feet or more, he gave a defiant snarl.
“Didn't know the circus was blowing through, fey.” he said. He took a single step forward before continuing, “I know all too well, Sovereign, how many people you have taken, and how little mercy you have ever shown! Therefore, I will not simply bow to you, monster.”
The corrupted fey king looked down upon him with almost a sense of pity stored somewhere behind the uncaring purple dots that occupied the otherwise empty eye sockets. The narrow smile curled wider into a line that split its face in two and that same, lead-toned voice bellowed out from the mist, dripping with venom.
“Then you shall die braver than most, fool,” it said. “Think: if I took in every peon that crossed my path, I'd have an army large enough to storm and snuff every light in this damnable land. You don't understand... ah, a mere mortal never could!”
The corrupted fey king's mannerisms began to turn manic as a single, three foot long, bone-riddled finger met its face. It scraped down its tight, pale skin, leaving a trail of dark, black ichor dripping behind it. The laughter grew louder until nothing else was audible, and the smell of decay was more than overwhelming. Tirjin wanted nothing more than to run, to vomit... to do both at the same time. He knew if he broke, though, Norum wouldn't make it out.
“If it is mercy you seek then I, Dirrus, The Frayed Sovereign, will grant you what you seek in a rare act of clemency! But know this: ruthlessness is a mercy upon ourselves, scale-bearer!” it shrieked above the cackles.
Before he even knew what happened, Tirjin found himself lying on a dark, unfamiliar floor. Up above him, and all around, stars and galaxies swirled as far as the eye could see. He blinked once, then twice before pushing himself to a seated position in this space. It was cold, but not uncomfortably so. He felt around him for his officer's saber, but found that it was nowhere to be seen. He knew that he'd die one day, but never thought it'd be to the Sovereign of the Mists. A honeyed, low-hum of a male's voice called out to him from behind.
"No one ever expects to simply die to the Frayed Sovereign, Tirjin. You're one of the lucky few to be granted that mercy."
Standing from where he sat, the dragonborn spun around to face the words being spoken. Infront of him stood a man clad entirely in black leathers and a heavy hood that obscured most of the face. Beneath that hood, he could make out what looked to be a raven mask with two, red eyes that peered at him from beneath the visage. Around his shoulders rested a magnificent mantle made of black and opalescent feathers that shimmered in the dim starlight of this realm. Under one arm he carried a massive, aged tome with yellowed pages that seemed to have a long bookmark flowing from them that ended in a curl around his feet. Despite the grim appearance, he felt at ease in the man's presence. Perhaps, he thought, maybe the Sovereign had granted him a final mercy after all.
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