Nobody's Servant, Act 1

Redundancy

Have you ever left a particularly dismal news broadcast on and sunk deeper and deeper into a pit of self-made despair even though you could get up and turn it off at any time?

This is like that, except for the part about being able to turn it off.

Jeden, the lively and surprisingly charming port town I arrived in continental Nayrean territory by way of, is a rubble heap now. The voice of Warden Oleander, the wolverine whose privacy we thoroughly violated if you recall, regales the city with a scathing report of the atrocities committed by the Prelature.

I'm horrified by it, and yet not surprised. The history of the Nayre Dominion and the Grym Prelature is the history of constantly doing worse and worse to the other, and after the former's recently used tactic of infesting the latter's crop soil with cradleworms, the fear of scorched earth tactics is an entirely rational one.

Then there's the incident at the Archives. I suspect I'm still in the clear, as I've faced no judicially administered consequences, but whether or not they actually know, they've got a tidy cover story to tell the populace. Or maybe it actually happened and I don't know either, wouldn't that be wild? But anyway, the gist is that there were a couple of Prelature operatives in the city who were found out, did as much damage as they could, were held for two days, and then self-terminated before giving up any useful information.

Overall, recent events have been pretty bad for worshippers of Soma; in the newly enacted policy of martial law, her temples will be subjected to increased policing "for the foreseeable future". Even Oleander, the shock-and-awe guy himself, doesn't seem very optimistic about ending this war in any reasonable timeframe.

I lose count of how many times the message repeats before it finally goes quiet, and the ambience of the city returns, free of ringing bells and bellowing demagogues. I might actually get some real shut-eye as the sun starts to go down if it stays that way.

But there's still time before then. Nym nudges the door open, checking on me again as he's been doing regularly. He shakes a black bottle in one hand before setting it down on the nightstand, wheeling a stool over to perch nearby.

"This is the last bit I can sneak away for now, on account of it being the last drop in the whole palace. Will it be enough?"

"Considering I'll be ready to go by morning, I think so. I'll see if I can convince Kyra to go with me again to get more," I say, taking the bottle. It's a high-grade ectoplasm coagulant, the same stuff he'd given me in the intravenous cocktail that kept me going by sheer abundance. "Truth be told, I'm more worried about your well-being than my own after we're out of it.."

"Because of the..." he puts a couple of fingers to his forehead, tracing them outward on a line in the direction of mine.

"Yeah, because of that. I don't know its limits yet. I'll bring it up to Yhana later too, before she has a chance to..." It's my turn to gesture, but the aimless circling of my hands indicates nothing more than my struggle to put it tastefully. Conveying enough implicitly, I uncap the bottle and drink deeply, dosage recommendations be damned.

"Understood. If I might ask, why keep it hush in the first place?"

I swish the remainder of my mouthful around, trying to acclimate to its powerful flavor before managing it down.

"Suraokh's weird threat's, for one thing. But for the other... embarrassment, I guess. If I was worried about her continued exposure, if it seemed dangerous, I'd have spoken up. But, I guess in light of recent events..." I roll my back, which pops a couple of times in response, hydraulics evening out. "I don't feel quite embarrassed enough to keep a lid on it anymore, comparatively."