An Uneasy Homecoming

The events that took place in the Jeweled Swamps feel like a distant, green dream. A nightmare of sorts, yet elusive and vague like a madman’s fantasy. As I started my journey back towards civilization I was to find out that in order to change the scenery, one needed to change his nightmares as well.

When I finally separated with Pale, he gave me a pouch made of rough leather. It was filled with peculiar, reddish pearls. “Something for the trip,” as he plainly put it. They were far from perfect in their shape and size, yet the color was extraordinary enough for me to barter them one by one into coin, food, lodging or passage during my arduous journey.

The hours were long in the various caravans and ships and there was plenty of time for me to contemplate on what had happened and what would happen next.

I reached some kind of an insight with the former. Indeed I had encountered ill magics, something more real and tangible than what the tricksters and hustlers of Scarlet could ever possess. It was a force that crossed and broke the chains of humanity in a way that was most vile in nature. I quickly realized that the supernatural events I witnessed didn’t get any better by contemplation: my mind naturally shunned away from the intricate and horrible details of my encounters. Perhaps the best for a simple and straightforward man is just to forget. A deed not easily attainable.

I reached a truce of some kind with my inner self as well. Now that I had accustomed to what I had become, I didn’t really want to go back to my old ways. I was convinced, that the meeting with the supernatural was the birthground that sprang my consciousness alive and now that it had been awakened there was no way to go back. Memories of my old life kept bothering my sleep, faces of the dead hadn’t gone away. Arduous travelling helped, as true bodily weariness was the best guarantee for quiet sleep.

There was also my future in Scarlet to be anxious about. What could I do, how would I live? I pondered on the choices I had and nothing of note came to mind at first. I could try my craft with locks and mechanics, but I was not a member of any of the guilds and they controlled the manufacture and trade with rigorous effectiveness. The Free Scholars would no doubtedly drive me away or worse, considering my history with my master Papak in the past. My old profession was out of the question.

More vague ideas came to me often, when I lay in my hammock on a deck of some river-barge under the star riddled sky and when sleep evaded me. It was the emptiness of cause and meaning. If there were powers out there, that could twist humanity, that indeed would twist humanity if they had the chance, then was there anything we could do about it? The old Derak would consider himself special among fellow men, and even though my new self had bursted that bubble to an extent, I felt that perhaps I could still have something meaningful to do, something that would give me cause.

During the voyage, my inner contemplations often conjured the images of people from the past. Yasul and Papak were the most constant visitors. When they did come, they often seemed to speak with me, without asking how I felt about it.

Manual labor is the means for the simplest of us. They give their flesh in exchange for food. Doing so makes you sturdy and strong, yet dull and lacking in finesse. We are strong and swift, yet our form of strength is applied in an instant. Let not the repetitiveness rob you of your senses of touch and feel, of distance and timing.

This was Papak, as lively as ever when I contemplated on a future of manual labor in the Scarlet. “Maybe not then, Papak, if it is avoidable.” I refused to call him master now, as I did back in the day when he was alive. He didn’t seem to mind.

As my journey progressed, the stack of pearls dwindled dangerously. I tried to eat less and buy the cheapest accommodation available but when I managed to do this, it was too late. The pearls finally ended in about ten days journey from the Scarlet and with a heavy heart I had to start selling my devices and potions. The things I bartered were more or less non-essential parts of what I had, but there was no way around it, in the Scarlet I would need to find something quick or face a downward falling spiral that would end in a gutter in Filth Alley.

The idea of my next step came only during the last morning of my travel, when I could already see the familiar silhouette of the city in the distance. It was something Papak had mentioned to me long time ago, when we talked about how information moved through the city.

The Mask Market, Derak. It is the hidden network of information spread anonymously throughout the city. The organisers of this network are individuals who stay in the background, buying and selling their craft. I know some of these mysterious men, and I can say that they are not simply greedy merchants trying to get rich. They have far greater plans. Such plans fulfilled would shake the foundations of this city, perhaps the world even.

I have no coin, I have no profession. But I have information of ancient perils. I have to put my hopes on the fact that I get in contact with people who are willing to pay for them, even a little. Perhaps I could dig a bit into this masked business and see if they have something I could do for a living. Not to mention there is a hole in my past: something I did between the time I touched the dark crystal and woke up in the Ruby Dancer.

I enter the glorious Vineyard Gate with my head held low, and travel garments tarnished by endless miles. Hooded I come and blending into the group of other travellers, filled by a sudden shame of my past in the city, trying not to run into people that could recognize me. There is no going to the Ruby Dancer, its glorious rooms are beyond my grasp at least at the moment. Whether I can find a shelter for the night is questionable. I am as unaccustomed to living in the streets as a poor person as I was in the jungles of the Jeweled Swamps. Maybe this is my lot in life. I push my head deeper into the shadow of the hood and press on.