eastbound | Audio / un: of corpse not

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Audio / un: of corpse not

[ Originally recorded the day of the senator's ill-fated party.
Jacob's voice is sore, rough from coughing, and throughout the recording he coughs periodically, as if he's just escaped a fire. ]

It's a snake. The Chained God. A great big fucking snake, covered in... in bits of paper. With writing on. Couldn't read it.

The chains are too. We were chaining him up, the the floor. It was broken, full of fissures. Not the chains, the floor.

We were chaining him, and he was... he said he someone else had... broken the womb? Birthed destruction? Not him. Or they'd taken up the mantle, because they'd chained him up.

[ He coughs then, and keeps coughing until someone seems to pass him a drink, and he murmurs thanks.]

That priestess. She asked me afterwards. If he was still a threat, I think. Told her that he was a bloody god, and they'd chained him up, so if he got loose then they'd be fucked.

That's... that's what I rememeber. Before the fire started.

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As you mentioned, it's incongruous. Why worship a god of destruction so openly? Much of the city would do so? Generally, worship of gods of pure ill intent would be done in secret.

There are likely pieces still missing. ( There's an eyebrow raise at the coughing. Wrath is not currently attending the party, but he is in his residence at the moment, and it seems like the party may have... exploded as events often do when the group is around. ) ...how did you come across this information?

Maybe because he was the one helping them destroy others? People have gods of war after all. Death has a seat at most pantheons.

[ Evie could back him up on this. Where was the bookworm when you needed her? ]

Priestess gave me a drink, full of who knows what. And then I was chaining a fucking golden snake.

( And yet mortals don't worship him. They tell frightening stories about how the demon princes will take their childrens' hearts, and blood, and etc. He prefers to be feared than worshipped, but it is the principle of the thing. )

...it was gold? ( Why is this serpent stealing his colors as well? Sigh. Magical visions induced by a concoction then. ) They do have gods of death and war, but neither death and war are unbridled destruction. Death is a natural and necessary part of life, souls need a place to go. War requires strategy, and it is often about conquest, growing in power. This Chained God must have more to what it presides over than simply destruction itself - perhaps before it was chained, it was different.

[ Jacob would tell you to get over yourself mate. ]

You know more about this rubbish than me. All's the same from where I'm standing, but he's not my god.

...But you do have a point. Wasn't always "the Chained One" so, what was he before then? Maybe that would help us with all of this, help us work out... whatever it is we need to work out for these people.

It is difficult to keep track of all the gods in this world. ( Wrath attempted to learn them all in Taravast when he first arrived, but there was such a wide variety of beliefs and gods to keep track of. It was not clear even which were real and which were not. )

So long as we don't leave this place worse off than when we arrived. It is difficult to make decisions for an entire city - certainly without enough information. ( It is why Wrath has been cautious with his influence thus far in politics. The group won't remain to experience the consequences of whatever they do here. )

Give the man a fucking beer!

[There's real delight, even pleasure in that loud exclaimation. Which unfortunately starts all the coughing again. But once that eases...]

Bloody hell. Whether we should be making them at all seems to have escaped everyone. Give them information by all means. Root out the fuckers that tried- succeeded in murdering people making decisions, sure. But this isn't our home. We've got no bloody clue, or stakes in this place.

( There is the slightest of eyebrow raise at the exclamation. It is highly possible Wrath has never consumed beer before as he hasn't with many mortal beverages and food, but he can appreciate the sentiment. )

We are agreed then in what the group should be doing in the city. ( And what they should not be doing. )

It is important to consider the potential ramifications of our actions in the long term. At times, our group has had reason to interfere further, but I have not seen a similar situation in this city yet. I certainly would not encourage them to relinquish their armies to an undead leader. The decision and consequences are their own to make.

[A smart man might say whoa, hold your horses, we haven't agreed anything yet, but Jacob is not a smart man.]

There's plenty of reasons- like I just said, a group of fruit and nut cakes just murdered someone in the middle of a party and tried to set us on fire, that's a pretty good reason to interfere. And the monster running around eating people. If we can help, then we should help.

I said nothing about helping where we could. The group always has. In Taravast, we learned through investigation that the leader was killing countless servants to extend his own life. This same leader had an agreement with the Brotherhood to spare their city from attack while they supplied the undead army with weapons. Even then, our group only brought the information to light. Those with power took control of the situation from that point forward.

( And Vannozza herself beheaded the leader in vengeance for what he had done to the city and to her, and her cousin was placed in charge, and the city now rebuilds. )

But we certainly should not be influencing votes in the Senate without knowing what exactly we are influencing. We will not remain - those in the city will have to deal with the consequences of handing their army over.

Some would say offering that help was influencing. I don't, I'm saying others might question why we're here at all.

[And then something is said that makes everything else the man says go in one ear and out the other, utterly ignored as Jacob latches onto soemthing that he knows, or at least, he thinks he knows.]

Brotherhood? The Brotherhood is here?

[That makes no sense. Why would they be arming the undead? That can't be right. He thought the Templars had something to do with this, not... wait. Wait.]

What Brotherhood?

( Just how uninformed are new individuals to their group? Does Karsa not give a thorough summary to new arrivals? And they are all then expected to influence this city without understanding the implications? )

I imagine you are referring to a different one than what exists here.

( One that he clearly has quite a bit of history with if the reaction is any indication. )

...the Brotherhood is what the alliance of the Undead Lieges refer to themselves as. They have attacked many cities, killed and taken control of many people including the very first to come through the beacons, and taken over a large majority of Akhuras... this world. This is the group Messalina claims to want to destroy so she might free her own undead army.

[ The expression of confused hope fades as the man on the other end of the line explains more, and Jacob vaguely remembers being told this, and he certainly rememebers the part about the Undead Lieges and Messalina's own ambitions.]

Yeah. Yeah.

The Ephians are between a rock and a hard place- and I don't pity them making the decision.

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Audio / un: of corpse not

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