npc inbox: sa-hareth + stairs of sighs

[groundrules]

NPC INBOX: SA-HARETH

Reach out to your (not-so-)favourite NPC here, putting their name in the comment header. Try to keep it to just quick text/audio/written exchanges or inquiries that can accept summarised answers, please!

CURRENTLY WITH THE PARTY

	THE MERCHANT username: raven master The patron saint of etiquette and the eastbound getaway expedition. Seems to largely trade information alongside wares. Appreciates spices, strategy and collaboration. Has an eerie and overly cautious manner. Committed. Defends the benefit of the many, to the detriment of the few.
	KARSA username: lady of the willow tree Sorceress, young (?). Employed by the Merchant and deferential to him. Talented but fiery and frequently impatient, intolerant of fools. She will get today's job done yesterday. Struggles to sympathise with men, objections and those who cannot absorb information quickly. Enchanted the group's translation devices.
	ASGEIRR The ghost of a scholar monk. Haunts the tattered execution cloak that the party stole from the La Rea bank in Sa-Hareth. Once a champion of equality and freedom, he faced ire for converting his followers against the regionally profitable trade of slavery. Soft-spoken but wise and just, slow to regain his strength. Will speak to those who visit his cloak in brief interludes. Favours necromancers.
	MAZYAR Charlatan, crook or wise man, Mazyar has worn all the names. Once an exceptionally skilled smuggler, now an equally apt tradesman and caravan master, allied with the Merchant. Less cryptic than his 'associate,' if more prone to riddles and keen on items with value.
	GHOST ARMY OF ARHA A maudlin, marauding and eerily fixated army led by the young lord Arha through the Stairs of Sighs. They seek to rescue Arha's oracle lover Hatisse from Taravast.
	OUHRSSON Guys, it's a bear.

SA-HARETH

	"HALTHAM" | ANURR username: Haltham | illiterate The undead warlord Anurr, previously posing as gentle-mannered giant Haltham. An embodiment of Sa-Hareth's cold storms and wind, who regained his territory from contender Unhalad with the inadvertent help of the party in Arc I. Frostily rational and amenable to some negotiation.
	THE (NOT-SO) GOOD PEOPLE From distressed locals to busy-bee merchants, guards, enchanters, tradesmen, politicians and looser-tongued courtesans — never underestimate the value of indiscretion in a citadel built on commerce, rumour and stubbornly choosing to ignore the expanding rule of the undead. Not every piece of gossip or legend's worth your time, but beggars can't be choosers.

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An Ghost, in person, during the trek through harpyland

[sergeant_slick]

He's been avoiding the ghosts. Look, the locals have been weird and creepy before, but this was just too much.

But after a while, the sheer fatigue over the whole situation wore him down. Sure. Ghosts. That was a thing now. And they might be extremely dead, but they still were an army. They were moving with purpose, and with a logic to their organization that made sense to him.

Wait, was he really considering talking to ghosts because he was homesick for the army? He shouldn't be. The army was literally the worst thing that ever happened to him.

...But he was going to talk to one of them anyway. He was on watch right now, and bored as all hells.

He'd been observing long enough to figure out one of them was an infantry sergeant, or whatever the local equivalent might be. He waited until a moment when the ghost was off-duty. Well, closer to off-duty than the whole "grimly marching on" or "fighting weird goo birds" or "staring mutely into the void" parts of their schedule.

"Sky's quiet for now. I suppose you lot have dealt with these things before?"

Because the practical stuff always comes first. It's a better introduction than "Hi, I see we've both got a tragic army backstory" or something.

[aprescoup]

Flickered and dancing the knife's edge between absent and corporeal, but the ghosts remember enough of themselves to perform their past function, their duties. They served as infantry and cavalry to the Sukhl, nomads given to fast conquest, to the minimal drag of resources on their journey. They are meant to be light, nimble.

...the caravan is steady but slow, ever visible, a waiting target. If this were the plains, Arha's people would seize the convoy. But the Lord has demanded they provide escort, and so the deed is done.

The man Slick approaches is a lieutenant, ranked. He accepts Slick to fall in step with him, even honouring him by providing shield cover when another harpy drops down dregs of tar and bone.

"Damned creatures never leave us be. Don't know what they want with us. Must be the road. Few critters here to feed'em. Must be Taravast, also. Witches, eh? What can you expect. No honest work, like sword and bow."

[sergeant_slick]

The shield's gratefully accepted. He's had enough of those blighted buggers trying to mess with them.

"Copy that. All this magic stuff is beyond me." He was trying to work on changing that, though. Fox had promised. Regardless, he still had a few blades about him, thanks to Eleven, and Lily. The knives had been a blessing during the attack on the farmstead, and the longer blade Lily had magicked out of a fire poker had held together well enough. He'd been keeping them all clean and sharp, though the lack of a proper sheath for any of them was a pain.

But that was the kind of grumbling you kept to yourself unless you knew the trooper you were talking to. So, he might as well properly introduce himself. "Sergeant Slick, formerly Grand Army of the Republic. Wanted to give my thanks for the assistance from your lot." He gestures toward the rest of the traveling party. "this caravan's almost all civvies. They mean well,"--mostly--"but they're not organized. Even just getting a head count is like pulling teeth."

[aprescoup]

The ghosts, at least, retain the manners to share their names, some their ranks. The march hasn't stolen this much from them, though some appear to struggle recalling aspects of their identity, where others are clear and adamant.

"Long as they steer clear of troubles, no more can be asked," one says.

[sergeant_slick]

The forgetting was fucking creepy. Not their fault, they obviously couldn't help it, but it was just too much like a nightmare he'd had back in the army--that every time he'd turn around, more men would be brainwashed so thoroughly that they weren't people anymore.

It makes it hard to focus on memorizing names, but he has a go of it. "Heh, I'm not sure I'd give them that much credit. Somebody brought that bear along after all. But they're trying." Though whoever'd brought the bear was trying a hell of a lot less.

"So apart from the overgrown buzzards and the fact that this route is mainly composed of fog and disappointment, how's the march treating you? Boots holding together alright?"

[aprescoup]

"We follow where Lord Arha leads," another supplies, and if he seems to struggle with his loyalties, the brief raise of weapons across the fire-side to a communal chant says otherwise. They were loyal before, stand loyal now. Nothing has changed for them. "His way is our way, his march is our march. He means to have a bride, then we break our feet and run our boots thin til he has her, eh, boys?"

The whistling and approving nods stoke hot around the group.

[sergeant_slick]

Well that sounds like a petty, sleenshit reason to go to war, and at least one of them seems to realize it. Needling in on that is dangerous, though. He's not sure if a ghost could end up in the shit for disloyalty and doubting the cause, but he certainly could. Maybe he'll try and catch up with the doubtful one later, see if he can find out more from somebody who isn't brainwashed.

But until then? Just be friendly. Don't make anybody suspicious. He nodded along. "Well, like I told my boys, a cause is only worth fighting for if you believe in it." He had told them that. They'd taken it to mean they should be fighting harder.

Dammit, that still made him angry. He shouldn't've said that. His face probably went a bit strange for a moment there. "I won't deny, I worry for you lot. I know what it's like, following a general who'll run you through the fire like that again and again. You've got a lot of faith in him, and I hope he's worth it."

[aprescoup]

That more than the words before it seems to still the phantoms, paralysed in place by a sense of wait and wonder, of animal alert. They turn, one by one, as if driven by a single instinct and feeling, to behold Slick, not a a breath out of turn, not a word surrendered.

Then, carefully, the highest ranking of them raises a hand, and releases a shivered, nervous laugh, "Our friend doesn't know the Lord Arha. He's speaking out of turn, cause he don't know better, but he means nothing by it."

[sergeant_slick]

Ah shit. "No, no, I didn't mean anything by it," He tries to backpedal. He did mean it, but he hadn't meant it to be so obvious.

"Like you say, I don't know him, you do. My problem's not with good leaders who treat their men right, just some dishonorable ones I've known."

[aprescoup]

And, like the crackling of thunder rumbling across the field, tension fissures, easing, escaping from the back and bones of the soldier crowd. There, crisis averted.

"See, friends? No trouble here." And the old man nods along, his point proven. "Our new friend only doesn't know Lord Arha. So, he wants himself a woman. What hasn't? He no different than the next. And her... well. Ain't worth him, but."

[sergeant_slick]

"That's right." Well, he'd never really been around women before so he couldn't truthfully agree to that, and admittedly he was trouble, but he could agree, he hadn't the first damn clue about Arha.

So technically he wasn't lying there.

"Don't know anything about her either. What's the story there?" If that was another point that could be used as a wedge, then maybe he could do something with that.

Wait, when had he started thinking about doing anything? This wasn't his fight, these weren't his brothers. They were just...

Fuck, he wasn't doing a very good job convincing himself.

[aprescoup]

Fresh unease roils around the soldiers, though animosity withholds itself. They look from Slick to one another, then turn their eyes on their seeming leader, who mulls his words carefully, jaw slack and clicking his tongue — as if he might wet his fleshless lips to avoid the aridity of the canyons.

"Be nothin' I'm saying against the good Lord." This, half for Slick, half for the men around him, to know he is not incriminating their good liege, or making them his accomplice in the misdeed. "The Attaryl witches sent'er young and pretty, loaned off to our 'court.' Course, we don't have nothing so fancy, but it's what they do. Train'em, send them off as court mages, and she had herself learning to do. They work while they're borrowed, we don't be feeding them for nothing."

A quiet, approving nod hum from many in the group. The story carries on, "So we took her, meaning, we had'er along for some marches. She spent her some time in tents doing whatever witches do, or healing, or... writing letters to her people, or putting the coin books in order. Nonsense. We're conquerors, not heavens-struck scribes. But she passed'er time. And she was always with the Lord, needing this scroll, that approval, presenting some... plans for... orphans or war children, or... whatever she did. Course he took a liking to her. Told you. She was pretty. And just about the only woman we had with us, except them camp whores. Think it was a year before the Attaryl wanted her back. She went over. The Lord didn't like that, but him, man of his word, what could he have done? She wasn't his to keep, though damned if he didn't try."