audio | username: raven master

[pulvisetumbra]

( Some might recognise the calm, glacial voice. Others might despise it. ) Good afternoon. For those whose acquaintance I have failed to make already: I am the Merchant.

It seems several of you have misunderstood your remit. You were sent to the ruins of Ellethia to grasp the stakes of our enterprise, and why your role in ensuring there is no repetition of this catastrophe is critical. You were assigned in hopes that next you are told those who willingly inflict the dead upon innocents deserve retaliation, you will heed your instruction.

Instead, you have opted to meddle. It is in your natures. I have come to accept it. But there are lines that should not be crossed — ones you have trampled with impunity.

( A pause, while he collects himself. ) Our associate Enam informs me that you have taken it upon yourselves to terminate the lives of the... sleeping tower dwellers. without cause, remit or invitation. Perhaps slaughter is commonplace in your homelands. I have clearly miscalculated your appetite for bloodshed.

No matter. You have killed good men and women. Ensure that you dispose of their bodies at sea, before the cycles of the land inevitably wake them. I trust, seeing as you had no qualms in ending their lives, you will be equal to the task of disposing them.

I expect our friend Zenobius will now have to seek out an alternative to his life's work. A pity.

( Silence, as if the Merchant might have neglected to end his communication. When he speaks, it's deeper, forcibly collected: ) Should that happen, seek out stored supplies, forage and maintain the wells. Your ship arrives within days. I bid you well on the next leg of your journey.


( ooc: in response to Moiraine, Eleven and Yennefer's decision to euthanise the Sleepers: on 11 February, characters may notice Zenobius is no where to be found. Characters can find him in a deep sleep akin to that of the Sleepers, at the bottom of one of the semi-dried wells previously inspected by Kaneki and John Connor.

Over 11-13 February, characters may notice the garden legumes and food supplies stop replenishing. They may have to leave the lighthouse to hunt for their sustenance. Water can still be procured from wells.

The voices and echoes that haunt the lighthouse become even more vocal, if not yet more violent.

The ship arrives to collect to group on 14 February. )

Comments

[pulvisetumbra]

How do you know they suffered? Explain. Concretely. With evidence. How do you know they would never have woken?

How dare you compare their innocent sleep with the action of a woman who willingly condemned countless citadels to the kind of ruin you behold in Ellethia? Are you a fool? Truly a fool, past your seeming natural incompetence?

Have you no ethical boundaries, sir?

[chosenbylight]

[It takes Anduin a great deal of self-control not to bristle in response to such provocation: he is a priest, after all. Do not question his ethics. That's the whole reason that he failed the very first mission he had been given in this damned place.]

Do you have evidence that such a fate would not have befallen Ellethia, regardless as to what actions Rigarda had taken?

[Oops. No seriously he knows he needs to step back the sass or he will find himself in (even more) Serious Trouble.]

This curse on the land, which causes the cycles. The dead to rise again. Who did this? Why is this tower the only part of this land which remains unaffected?

If this trip is meant to teach us something, then tell me this much. Is this meant to be your cautionary tale of what may be to come for the rest of those fallen cities, should the undead continue their path of destruction?

[pulvisetumbra]

Rigarda didn't condemn Ellethia. She sold weapons to the dead so they might enslave other nations. Innocent ones. Unaware.

What you must learn from here is what comes of the dead roaming. That you did not simply choose to forgive and spare a woman who sponsored a merciful and bloodless conquest. That the dead do nothing carefully or with integrity.

That in letting her live, you enable her and those like her, who trade in death. That you are now complicit.

[chosenbylight]

The world will never be so black and white as that, no matter how much we may wish it so.

[pulvisetumbra]

Moral relativity only ever emerges when it suits you all. Have you noticed?

[chosenbylight]

[Anduin is only going to make himself angry(er) by continuing this conversation. He has to find a way end it somehow, and quickly...]

When it does not suit yourself, do you mean?

[pulvisetumbra]

I am the least hypocritical among you.

[chosenbylight]

[Are you though? Are you really???

Anduin isn't going to let himself answer this because he's already said more than he should. That whole conversation he had with Wrathion about not drawing the Merchant's attention? Oops.]