Veha's Prologue: The Mire of Human Veins

[truemane]

Town of Orlandaar
Border State of Haarn
Central Disctrict
High Mid-Summer
Dawn

Orlandaar was a place of contradictions. New and explosive urban growth sat side-by-side with ancient and orderly farmlands. Armoured military columns stepped off riverboats next to lowly fishermen. Groups of bandits and raiding bands of Juunruli swept the region just outside the Baron's Wall. Water and land, powerful and powerless, both backwater and power-centre, Orlandaar was a place that defied easy understanding.

It was perhaps this very sense that Orlandaar was a place of two opposite (but mutually necessary) worlds that appealed most to Veha, himself a child of many contradictions. And like this place, and like his own internal composition, this assignment seemed to always dance just beyond rational comprehension. Attached to a 'backwater' noble who just happened to be the Lord of the most powerful crossroads for hundreds of miles. He was assigned to advise a man who seemed to need no advisor. And he was to 'watch over' an administration that seemed to have nothing to hide.

And where did that leave Veha? On his own mostly. With few official duties to occupy his mind and his time, he filled his days as best he could. So it was that, when the ragged little urchin-girl came running to him on the street, eyes aglow and completely out of breath, it was a welcome break from the routine. Or lack thereof, as it were. And, in between great heaving breaths, this is what she said:

"I found you! I... I told him I would... and I did! ...Find the Jaden with the dark eyes... and darker hair... well-favoured and with a clear gaze... and I said I would and I did. And here I am and here you are and I'll have a coin to take home to my mum... I will! He told me so!"

Clearly excited beyond the capacity for organized thought, the little girl seems halfway between collapsing and dancing.

Spoiler

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Welcome to End of Days! Thank you for your patience during the long (perhaps torturous) initial stages. I hope you find the game worth the effort.

I left out your location on purpose. I don't know if Veha hangs out in taverns or walks through the rural districts or stays home or what he does. So you can include his physical location in your post.

I figure Veha's been here a couple of months. Long enough to learn that he's not welcome at the Baron's councils any more than strict legal necessity demands. And so he's free to do, more or less, what he wants.

The Jaden-Rah are not held in as much awe here as they are further into the Interior. So far from the bulk of the Nation's legal apparatus, you really only have as much power as you can exert on your own. Everyone knows that, if there were a conflict, it would take a month to send word to anyone who'd care and another two months before help arrived. If it ever did. Veha is free to feel whoever you like about this blurring of traditional power-lines

If you have any questions, you know where I am.

[FirebirdFlying]

Veha

Startled out of reverie, he looks down at the girl, blinking as her tongue runs on. "Well, hello! I suppose you certainly have found me - and that I'm as dark-haired as anyone in the general area." He grins at her, hands on hips. "Mind telling me who he is, though? …Er, go ahead and catch your breath first, we wouldn't want you keeling over now that we've just met."

Even if she's just a thief, at least she's some conversation.

[truemane]

The little girl does indeed take a moment to catch her breath. But only a moment. A pause and a deep heaving inhalation and then she's off again in a tone so hurried that it is tiring just to listen to her.

"He? He? The man it was, down by the river this morn just come off one of the rafts coming into the city from the north from the mines..." Another long heaving breath, "...and he stopped me where I stood looking as I was for foods fallen from the carts heavy-laden as they come off the water to the shore sometime they do that and me mum says it's no really stealing if they're on the ground and no one catches you and who's to be the wiser anyway she says..." Breath "...and the man with the two swords all wrapped up for travel had an orange and he told me to eat it and I did and he said he had more and a coin! A coin for me to bring me mum for the markets tomorrow and all he said was to find the fair-favoured Jaden with the dark hair and eyes and to tell you his master awaits you past the north-quarter cross-roads and then to find him again with your reply and I'll have a coin all for my own and me mum and all..."

And with that she stops. Not because she's done necessarily, but because she's run completely out of energy and flops down a nearby stonewall like a rag-doll thrown by a child in a tantrum and just sits there, looking at Veha as though wondering what, exactly, comes next.

[FirebirdFlying]

Veha

…From the north, eh? Could be anyone… "Well, as it happens I'm heading down that way myself. So why don't you take me to him, and I'll give him my answer myself? You might even get two coins out of it."He sinks down next to her. "Whaddya say?"

[truemane]

The little girl's eye light up at the mention of a second coin and then falls again as some sort of realization hits her. She ***** her jaw back and forth in deep thought, but then nods and looks up at Veha.

"I'd love a coin. And two would be ever-so-good. But he's not asked for an answer. Only for me to give you a message. And I have it here. And so I've got to do as I was bid."

And with that she reaches into her ragged, filthy tunic and draws out an envelope of high-quality paper. Although the young one takes care not to smear it too badly, its pristine whiteness has been smudged and marked and streaked with dirt. The girl looks slightly shamefaced as she hands it over, clearly embarrassed about the state of the message, but not mentioning it.

[FirebirdFlying]

Veha carefully takes the note, hand brushing hers. "A moment?" He opens it, scanning it quickly to get the gist.