Lady's Grace, cutters!

 

“I think we'll be seeing this one again."

Factol Terrance, about a young priest of Yen-Wang-Yeh

 

 

Second Guild Day of Savorus , 126 HR

Sometimes, when the days in Sigil were particularly dull and rainy, Terrance wondered why he had left paradise. Why he had traded the friendly days and balmy nights, the white beaches and blooming groves of Elysium for the filthy rain and intrigue of the Cage. Of course he knew the answer. It had not been the fact that he had turned his back on his goddess Mishakal. He could have easily stayed on his home plane, even without worshiping a deity. But joining the Athar and finding his new power in believing in the Great Unknown - this he would not have achieved in Elysium. At least not in the way he had aspired to. So it had been almost inevitable that his path had led him to Sigil, to the gates of the Shattered Temple. Here he had realized that his clerical powers were not irretrievably lost to him. And here he had become more powerful as a priest than ever before. Without any deity. Only through faith in his own strength and the certainty that the Great Unknown was a source of power that he could channel through this strength. Here he had made new friends, had become factol, and thus had the chance to steer the Athar onto more peaceful, level-headed paths. And yet there were days, cool, rainy and foggy days, when he wished he was back in Elysium. On such days, he particularly liked to visit his own little paradise that he had created within the walls of the Shattered Temple. It was a garden that he had already created during his time as a factotum of the faction and had carefully tended to and expanded ever since. It was located in the ruins of the Fallen Tower, from which the Lady's wrath had once torn off the entire roof. Almost thirty years ago, Terrance had planted a small herb garden with a few beds in this part of the temple, which was mostly unused at the time. During his time in Conclave Fidelis, he had learned a lot about officinal plants, as well as how to make healing potions, antidotes and medicines for various diseases. At a time when he had not yet regained his clerical powers, when he had only been able to rely on needle and thread, bandages and scalpel and various elixirs, such a garden had been a welcome opportunity for him to heal nonetheless. It had therefore been primarily a pragmatic consideration at the time, not yet a refuge when he was homesick. And that had often been the case in his early years in Sigil. He had sorely missed the Elysium. Although he had become more and more accustomed to the Cage over the years, there were still days when he felt a certain nostalgia at the thought of his old home. That was when he particularly enjoyed coming here, and the garden was now much more than the few herb beds of the early days. Flowers, shrubs and perennials from various planes now grew here, even trees, some of which had reached a respectable size in the last almost thirty years. With a lot of patience and perseverance, with the help of some druids from his faction and a plant genasi, Terrance had managed to create a flourishing garden in the middle of the Lower Ward. Like many of the gardens and parks at other faction headquarters, it was protected from Sigil's often devastating weather by a magical dome that let in light, but could keep out storms, sulphurous rain or hailstones - weather conditions that Sigil frequently had to offer. Terrance only deactivated the crystals that generated the magical field to water the garden when the rain was gentle and unspoiled. Afterwards, he quickly restored the pleasant warmth that escaped by invoking the Great Unknown. As a result, his garden was in eternal spring, the flowers were always in bloom and the trees and shrubs always bore fruit. He had carefully selected every seed and planted it himself because it had a very special use: herbs for healing potions, flowers that alleviated illnesses as an infusion, corms from which he obtained extracts to cleanse wounds, berries from which antidotes could be distilled, roots for pain-relieving ointments ... Despite all the power that the Great Unknown gave him, he had never stopped using these treasures of nature. Ambar had brought many of the seeds back with him from one journey or another, which the bard still undertook even as a factol whenever the Cage confined him too much. The freedom-loving half-elf would then find a suitable portal and roam the realms of the Outlands or the Upper Planes for a few days. Sometimes he brought him whatever he happened to find, sometimes Terrance asked him for specific seeds or seedlings - and Ambar would tailor his destinations to his wishes. The ointments and potions that Terrance made from all the plants in his garden were distributed among the members of his faction and to those in need in the Hive and Lower Ward. But the garden itself was his own realm, to which he did not grant access to many people. These included his deputies Jaya and Hobard as well as his secretary Askorion and the ranger Caylean. Outside the faction, only Ambar and Elyria had this privilege. The half-elf as his best friend since his time in Sigil and Elyria as his closest confidant from his days in Conclave Fidelis. The lupinal was still a priestess of Mishakal, but she had never broken with him, placing their friendship above religion, philosophy and worldview. Every now and then she visited him in Sigil, and Cebulon, the new patriarch of the monastery, tolerated it. On this day, however, Terrance was expecting neither Ambar nor Elyria, but Jaya in his little paradise. He was weeding one of the beds when she quietly entered the garden and greeted him with a slight bow. He waved her off as he stood up and shook the soil off his hands. He attached no importance to formalities in such situations. Jaya knew this, of course, which was why she now approached in a cheery and casual manner, obviously in a good mood.

"Lady's Grace, Factol," she greeted him with a warm smile. "Hobard said you wanted to see me?"

Terrance nodded and beckoned her to take a seat next to him on one of the benches. She sat down and let her gaze wander around the garden, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"The smells here always remind me of my childhood," she said with a smile.

Jaya had once been a cleric of Silvanus in Faunel, introduced to the Church of the Forest Father by her mother. There had been some differences with the neutral church early on, as Jaya's increasingly good-aligned attitude had not always harmonized with their views of natural balance. She had lost her faith when she had failed to save a dying friend because she hadn't been able to channel the divine power - in the presence of some Athar. The blow of fate had hit Jaya so hard that a certain mental derangement had set in. The Athar had taken her to Sigil and brought her to the Gatehouse. When Terrance had found out about this, he had visited Jaya there regularly and the young woman had come to trust him enough to overcome her condition. A short time later, she had joined the Athar and become a cleric of the Great Unknown. She had quickly risen through the ranks of the faction and was now the right hand of the factol along with the githzerai wizard Hobard. Terrance was about to say something when Jaya's gaze fell on the strawberries growing nearby.

"Oh, they're ripe already," she said enthusiastically. "May I?"

He smiled. In situations like this, she was neither a high-ranking factor nor a powerful cleric, but still the girl from Faunel. The girl who had become like a daughter to him.

"Go ahead," he replied kindly. "But not all of them, please. The family Caylean is staying with wanted to make jam this week, so I promised him some berries."

She rose again and laughed as she picked a few of the ripe strawberries. "As long as I get another jar, Caylean is welcome to bring them all to them. Except for this handful here."

As he watched her take a seat next to him, snacking on the red fruit, he realized once more how much he had grown fond of her. Her father, a ranger, had left the family when Jaya had been only a few years old. This had influenced her entire childhood and youth, and she had suffered greatly from this gap in her life. Terrance was all too aware that in him she had finally found someone who could take this place again and had become a father figure to her. He himself had already accepted not to have children. But when he had met Jaya and formed a deep and trusting bond with her, he had been happily surprised and also very grateful to realize that family could have many faces.

When she had eaten the last of the berries, she washed her sticky hands in one of the small ponds and then took a seat next to him once more. "So, what is this about, Factol?" She immediately frowned at the look on his face. Oh, she knew him too well. "It's something unpleasant, huh?"

He swayed his head with a slight sigh. "In a way, yes. It's about Tovus Giljaf."

Jaya's gaze darkened. "Is he stalking you? Is he planning something?"

"I'm not quite sure yet," Terrance replied matter-of-factly. "But recently I saw one of his confidants from back then near the Temple."

"One of those who were banished with him?"

Terrance nodded. Far be it from him to be intimidated or to stir up unnecessary panic, but he took the matter seriously. The githzerai Tovus Giljaf had been factol of the Athar before him and clearly belonged to the radical wing of the Lost. Giljaf had encouraged violent actions such as the destruction of temples or physical attacks on paladins and clerics. Some deaths had led to violent clashes with the Harmonium and Terrance, then factor, had deposed Tovus Giljaf as factol at a meeting of all Athar factors. The githzerai had sworn bitter revenge on him and assured him he would return before he had left Sigil. Giljaf was currently mayor of Curst, the gate town to Carceri, which in Terrance's opinion only confirmed that he had been right to get rid of him. Unfortunately, this also meant that Giljaf still had a certain amount of power, and the means to possibly lend weight to his cravings for revenge. Over the past twenty years, he had tried - not continuously, but more than once - to end Terrance's factolship prematurely. So if one of his confidants from back then showed up in the Cage, at least a healthy degree of caution was in order.

Jaya seemed to think so too, as she nodded gravely. "I don't like this, Terrance. Not at all. What do you want me to do?"

"Take care of yourself, Jaya," he asked her, briefly grasping her hand. "Giljaf knows for sure that you're close to me. So you could be a target for him too."

"Perhaps," she said. "But I'm far more worried about you. Should I send Askorion and Caylean to try and find this man?"

"I've already told Askorion," Terrance replied. "If the man is still in Sigil, I'm sure he'll find out."

Jaya nodded and hesitated briefly. She obviously suspected that he wouldn't like to hear what she had to say next. But she said it anyway. "In the meantime, perhaps you shouldn't be on your way alone ..."

"Jaya," he replied patiently. "We've already talked about this several times. I can't hole up here in the Shattered Temple just because there are people out there stalking me. Giljaf is one of the more dangerous ones, but still just one of them. If I start doing that, I might as well lock myself away here."

"I know." She sighed deeply. "And I understand that, I wouldn't act differently myself. It's just ... I'm just worried."

She looked at him, and in her grey eyes he recognized her affection and also the fear that something might actually happen to him. The fear of being left behind again. Reassuringly, he placed a hand on her forearm. "I know, child," he replied. "Please don't worry. It will take a little more than a bitter ex-factol and hell gate guard to hurt me."

Smiling, she squeezed his hand. "Otherwise you wouldn't have been here to guide us for twenty years."

She really tried hard, but he could tell that the last vestige of concern had not quite faded from her gaze. So he got up and handed her a small shovel and a bag of seeds. "Come on," he said kindly. "You can help me plant the glass dew berries."

She took both and stood up, but shook her head jokingly and reprovingly. "Oh, I know you're just trying to distract me."

"You see right through me," he replied with a grin. "And I admit that the berries are an inadequate attempt at that. However, we have two new residents here in the garden and I thought you might like to see them."

Now she was actually curious. "New residents? Animals, you mean? What kind of animals?"

Terrance smiled. Yes, in her heart Jaya was still a child of Faunel. "Come along," he said. "If we're quiet, maybe we'll spot them."

Eagerly, and as quietly as possible, she followed him to one of the more secluded corners of the garden, and for the moment at least, she seemed to have indeed forgotten Tovus Giljaf and the faction's dark past. Fine, Terrance thought to himself. One day that past might reach out to him, and Jaya wouldn't be able to stop it. But that day was not today.

 

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based on the roleplay with Jana's player from June 20, 2012