username: haltham

[aprescoup]

( Audio: translated through the House of Dew quartz network. A man’s voice, fairly coarse, hesitant. )

...llo? Hello there? Right. Sorry. This is a fancy —

( Fumbling, as he hunts his words and the device settings. Try again: )

Greetings. This is Haltham. I met you. Some of you. At the jailhouse. I was the one who told you...? You remember? Tall? Green eyes? You remember. Come on. Most of you were, ahhh... a little... little rougher for your wear, but you remember. Sweated blood to get you out of… and Karsa, Up the mines? Well. Doesn’t matter now. I’ve got an hour. If you didn’t know me then, you’ll learn me now.

( And softer: ) I wish I could see you. See all of you. I’m told… Tamaiu sends me word every few days. Tells me you’re all right. Handful, but... what’s that about some of you starting the old trade? True, that? Well. Well, well. Just wish I could see you. First ones we’ve gotten out, and I can’t even see — ( Laughter, bittersweet. )

...you don’t care. Look, you’ll leave Sa-Hareth soon. The old man worked long for it. He promised. And I know you must have questions, and I’ll tell you right, I do too. I’m doing my bit, but he doesn’t let on much. Think he’s afraid, he says too much to one of us, we get captured, the entire work’s at stake. And maybe he’s right. Who’s to say, eh? Who’s to say. For now, you and I, we focus on our duties. Yours: get coin. We just need a bit, and — no, I won’t be lying, not me, it’s not a little. About 100,000 pieces. Give or take, what thirty good men make at the port each month. And it won’t all go to you, either, got some pockets to fill, if we want you out without... trouble. And we do. We all do.

We’ve got options: we take you out with the old spice caravan when it comes by the next full moonrise, or we find you a smuggling ship. Either way, won’t be cozy, but you’ll live. You’re the living sort.

( He seems to catch his wits back about himself, just as the channel is briefly disrupted by the half-purred, half-moaned communication of a courtesan wooing a patron into a booking. Haltham waits until she’s done completely: )

...ladies here, they’re something else, aren’t they? If I had that kind of coin, I wouldn’t say no, myself. Sorry. Sorry, we’ve got children with us. And look after the lil’uns, will you? The pink and the furred one. The girls? They’ve got a... people here, you get all sorts. Them’s good, and then there’s them with appetites. ( A pause, pregnant. Long. )

I’ve got some tips, in any case. Some... guidelines. Give it another sennight, the fat trade starts, and every big man east comes in with his ship, and they bring anything. Everything. So much gold. And then there’re the auctions, and they waste, fellows, friends, they’re pissing that money, then, they’ll buy and sell anything. Sell them rags and tell them it’s riches, and they’ll believe you. Anyway. Anyway, there’s salt to sell, if you want. Some... other things, I’m sure you’ve got your plenty. And I’m bringing them, by the way. Your old things? We rescued some. Has to be in turns, with the House’s laundry and spice and food parcels, and we bury them deep, but. Just cast yer eye, it’ll be there. All of it. If it’s yours, it’s not mine, and I’m no thief. None of us... we don’t want anything from you.

( His voice drops to an octave, a murmur. ) Look. Advice? If you take it? Keep your head low. Let the old man sort you. Don’t go anywhere alone. Trust no one, or as few as you can. Unhalad’s people, you can tell them apart, they’re everywhere, and they’re wild. And they go wilder, the colder it gets, has them running. Look... kill them. If you can, do it quick. But don’t try it with the red sleeved’uns, though. Stay out of their way. And if you can’t... the old queen had our pillars put in for the parades, and they’re are good iron. Strong. Could berth your boat against’em. Honest. Run. Run, head first, and meet the iron where your head’s soft on the sides. Do yourself with your own hands, it’s better than if red sleeves get you. You trust me.



( OOC: post open, threadjack amongst yourselves at will. Haltham will input here and there.

Character inventory items that weren’t with them when they escaped will be brought in over three House of Dew deliveries spanning the next few days. The first shipment will come with laundry, the second will comprise small items hidden beside apothecary bottles, and the third will come with the establishment’s food carts. Up to you which belongings your character gets back first, and whether they’re in pristine, lightly chipped or damaged conditions. )

Comments

[aprescoup]

Is how it happened. Was when the salt trade was waning, they had to sell more, push more for extraction, to make the same coin as before. Cut some corners.

Then, the deaths happened in the mines. Hundreds.

And they woke.

[jeoha]

[ He let out a long breath. ]

Slow down.

Explain what you mean. When you say cut corners, do you mean that they were more dangerous? More crowded?

[ A very solemn pause. ]

What were they feeding them?

[aprescoup]

They worked that mine until she broke. The rocks caved. Buried some good men in.

[jeoha]

[ He's pretty sure that if the answer to his question had been 'human corpses' that he would have gotten that answer, so for now he will set aside that line of thought. He nodded, before he remembered that he couldn't be seen, and then said: ]

Structural collapse. I understand. So hundred of men were killed. When did they 'wake'? A few hours later? The next day? How did they get out?

[aprescoup]

That, I can't tell you. Wouldn't know. Imagine... ask one of them who was there, if they remember.

But me, I worked the mines. Night and day and since I was wee, and I can tell you, there's ways if you're wanting them. If you've got the time to dig.

[jeoha]

... Mm.

I can seek more information elsewhere.

But these miners, these dead men, they became the force that could fight the red-sleeved hordes? What had the ones with red sleeves been doing before that? Invasions? Raids?

[aprescoup]

Sa-Hareth was theirs. Everything was theirs. They didn't... it didn't take no fighting. They just took. ( Silence, stretching. ) People ask, why don't you fight, why didn't you fight then? How can you? What do you do? And they didn't take that much, then. You just... live, don't you? You wake one day, and you bow your head a bit, or you give them a little, and next day you give them more, but you learn it, don't you? And it's better than what could be.

[jeoha]

[ Ah. He was starting to understand, now. Infected used more as a control mechanism for the populace. Fear to keep them in line. A plague taxation. His lips thinned.

And this time, it was his fault. ]

There is no fault in survival, [ He said finally. ] I would not ask why you did not fight. You survived. It is not a miner's duty to keep that kind of terror at bay. It is not for ordinary people.

[ A pause. ]

... These red-sleeves... They can speak, can't they?

[aprescoup]

...some. The strong ones remember. The weaker ones, learn.

[jeoha]

[ There is a much longer pause. ]

Then they are different.


I have already witnessed them. In the jail.

[aprescoup]

Did you? For the feeding rounds?

[jeoha]

[ There's a longer pause. This is something that Mu-Yeong would tell him not to say. To keep secret.

But these kinds of secrets murdered men. And he couldn't have that on his conscience. ]

No.

They were crying to be let free, when we passed their cells. Where I come from - the infected cannot speak. They cannot think. They only hunger for human flesh and thirst for human blood - there is no other instinct within them.

So when I heard the cries--

I thought they were men.

[aprescoup]

So, you thought you left men behind. It don't speak good of you, but. There's worse to be done.

[jeoha]

[ He lets out a heavy breath. ]

No.

I did not leave them behind.

[aprescoup]

You... did not leave them behind.

( A stricken pause, still sprawling. )

Who, ah... who are you?

[beitangmoran]

... Is he saying that those particular undead are his former companions? Mine workers that got trappend killed? Citizens of this land, unlike this Unhalad and his legions?

[jeoha]

I think he's saying Unhalad's legions are the former mineworkers. That the red-sleeves I saw were there before, and then tragedy befell the mines, and -

Well.

Someone took advantage of it.

[beitangmoran]

So we have a first faction of undead, cognizant enough to pass as not, and extremely ferocious. Ferocious enough that we have been told it would be better to take our own lives should we risk capture by them. And by all accounts, ancient beings of some kind.

And then another faction, made up of this man and the corpses of townspeople that he somehow called back to the living. And this faction outnumbers the other, but they are merely puppets.

... You did not seem surprised, back in the jail, to see undead people moving about.

[jeoha]

[ A deep sigh. ]

My people suffered a terrible plague. Where the recently dead were turned into monsters who wanted nothing more than flesh and blood.

So no.

I was not surprised.

They were used then, too, for horrible measures.

I knew better than to assume we had finished the plague for good. And there are many questions, still. But to be so far from home and find it so prevalent here... I merely hope they are not those that can turn others into monsters when they attack.

[beitangmoran]

What caused it? Do you know?

And what do you mean 'can turn others into monsters when they attack?'

[jeoha]

I know. A worm - a parasite - that takes to recently diseased tissue and takes control of the body in order to propagate itself.

To do so, they eat into the flesh of another, implant the worms, and when they die the cycle starts again.

... The worms can be implanted. By a doctor into the recently diseased.

[beitangmoran]

They did it intentionally?

So that means there is a chance this is not just a supernatural phenomenon, but provoked. Although... Magic and sorcery do appear to be a thing in this place.

[jeoha]

Even if they are, Magic and sorcery are still wielded by men.

And many will do anything to give them power.

[beitangmoran]

.... Something similar happened in my country.

The difference is that people were not undead, they were still very much alive, and the infection did not transmit from people to people. The parasite was also not a worm, but an insect.

[jeoha]

How did you overcome it?