Common Worlds

The start date of the campaign is approximate--some time in early 2000, I think.

A Rude Interruption

In Pavis on Godday, Fertility Week, Storm Season, 1617 S.T. all the auspices seemed correct for young Cam Rass of the clan of Rass to attempt his first initiation into the secrets of Issaries. Cam's brother, Gil had successfully lobbied for this elevation among his fellow merchants, sponsoring him in this. He had the support of his father Drozal as well.

The day was windy and cool, but the wind came from the south and carried moisture with it. Earlier there had been rain, which everyone agreed was a good sign. At sunset, a traditional time for Lightbringer initiations, Cam's family and business associates gathered in the Market at the steps of the Issaries temple. Markets are sacred to Issaries.

Issaries Priest Kojalor Good Mule of the Indagos led the cermonies. He is a well respected grain merchant and associate of the Rass family, though he wasn't from one of the noble houses that survived the Occupation.

The ceremony opened with a benediction from Kojalor:

"We gather here at the start of a great journey, in imitation of the Great Traveller, my lord Issaries. Though we may travel alone through hostile lands, here as we begin we ask that all good caring Spirits gather to aid and support this assembly and our new candidate. The protection of Issaries and his market be upon us."

With this invocaton, all attendees were affirmed in Issaries' protection, aware that they were now in a sacred place.

Kojalor continued:

"We pray that the Gods and Spirits of the Darkness cloak him from his enemies."

From the edge of the crowd a tall figure cloaked in black walked forward. The crowd shrank away from him, though Gil recognized the figure as an Argan Argari from Adari. The dark merchant said "Let him respect the children of the Night and give them their due. There is no profit in fearing the unknown." Then he steped back to the edge of the assembly.

From the top of the stairs, Kojalor spoke a second time, gesturing toward the river:

"We pray that the Gods and Spirits of the Waters allow him to pass on his journey."

An Ingilli fish merchant from Riverside worked his way through the crowd, sprinkling water from a cup. "The waters know their ancient places, rights and duties. All who remember these things are accorded respect. Embrace the course laid out for you." He passed the cup around the crowd.

Gesturing at the ground, and the four corners of the world, Kojalor again invoked:

"We pray that the Gods and Spirits of the Earth support him."

Stepping from behind her husband, Kojalor's wife, Indarsa Indagos stood proud and spoke: "I speak for Mother Earth, Ernalda, and her sisters. Let him always choose the correct path." She stepped forward and kissed Gil lightly on the forehead, then returned to her husband's side.

Raising his arms to the heavens, Kojalor invoked a fourth time:

"We pray that the Gods and Spirits of Light light his way."

A scruffy Sartarite bowed and approached from Kojalor's right hand. Clad in frayed deerskins, he neverthelss bore a golden circlet on his brow, and as he spoke, it began to glow. "Clear vision, warmth to his hearth, and loyalty from his thanes." he said, then bowed again and stood to Cam's right. His circlet lit the assembly as the last rays of sun set over the distant hills of Sartar.

Over a rising wind, Kojalor raised his voice:

"We pray that the Gods and Spirits of the Air defend him."

Pushing through the crowd came a wild haired main, his face daubed with blue swirls, impatient to reach the front. Once there, he shouted out over rising wind:

"Hear the trumpet shout of Storm!
Honor kin and thanes your friends.
Of these was the world remade.
Heroes heeded that dread quest
Lacking them it dies again. "

The warrior strutted a circle around Cam while speaking, slapped him on the back, then took his place in the West.

Now Kajalor gestured behind Cam to those come to support him.

"We pray that his family and clan support him as he shall support them."

Now Cam's father, Drozal Rass, came forward. He took a breath as if to speak, then stopped. Kojalor waited a moment, then looked meaningfully at the candidate's father.Still, Drozal kept silent.

But a moment later, Cam started and began to shake. Everyone noticed the temperature drop. Only later, after the ceremony was Cam able to explain what happened.

While everyone else waited for Drozal to speak, Cam heard words coming from behind him. But they did not sound like his father's voice. Angry, impatient words filled his father's spot in the ceremony:

"Learn, and remember. Family is memory, life and death. Honor the past and the future is assured. Here a journey does begin, but choosing this way leaves your family behind. Learn, and remember. Forgetting about a curse does not mean that the curse forgets about you. "

At this, Cam turned to see who was intruding. Not ememies exactly, but no one expected or welcome.

Cam saw his father standing rigid and unmoving behind him, straining at something invisible to the other participants to the ceremony. But Cam saw a huge Pavic warrior standing on his father's right, grasping an arm and the back of Drozal's head. He bore a huge shield, used and scarred, and armor of zebra hide.

On his father's left was a short, stocky man in ritual garb, bareheaded with a Rass clan mark tattooed on his forehead. He grasped Drozal's other arm, and had a hand clapped over Drozal's mouth.

The stocky man spoke again. "Learn and remember. Else is the end of all."

Cam, flustered and confused, stuttered out "Who are you?"

"Such questions are not so easily answered. You earn such answers." the short man said.

"Answers you should already know!" yelled the tall warrior, pointing an accusing hand straight at Cam."Learn and remember!"

Drozal shook himself as the warrior let go of him. Gil, the older brother, shook him then, asking "Father, are you all right? What's going on?'

As if waking from sleep, Drozal spoke under his breath."I recognize them."

Again, Cam asked, latching onto his father's eyes. "What is this?"

"These are spirits. Spirits of the past. Things I left behind." Drozal started to get angry, something his children were not used to seeing.

The bald spirit in Cam's vision pointed at Drozal. "He has forgotten the way. He has ignored those who would protect him and failed to show the way." The stocky, tattooed man seemed disgusted to Cam. "You must do better." again he pointed at Cam.

Drozal seemed to strain to hear. To the air, he spoke, "Such as you, I know well enough. Such as you, I left behind. Such as you, I have no need for."

Cam saw the warrior move to strike his father, but at a a geture from the short man he held his hand. Shaking his tattooed head, he held up his palm toward Drozal. "You have spoken. So you are forgotten. Our hands are removed from you, as you wish. See what joy it brings you." Now he turned back toward Cam, extending that same hand. "You are young, and do not know. Do not make your father's mistakes. Learn, and remember."

With that, both the strangers, solid-seeming to Cam, faded into invisibility. Cam covered his face with his hands. The crowd, previously silent, began tu murmur.

Kojalor seemed upset, seeing the ceremony fail. "Clearly, the auspices are not right to proceed with Cam's initiation.Perhaps if these matters are resolved....Thank you all for your involvement. Go with the blessing of Issaries, who protects this Market."

The crowd milled about a bit, and Gil, ever the politician, tried to smooth things over with little success. Cam ran off. Gil, unaware of what the "spirits of the past" had said, asked his father to explain.

Drozal paused, looking thoughtful. "Walk with me." Without waiting, he headed toward the Rass Manor, with Gil by his side and Senech trailing behind, listening. Together, they walked through the market and up toward Rich Hill. Drozal took his time, looking thoughtful before speaking. "When I was young, I left behind the old city and its old ways. I found my own way beyond the fears of the past. I trusted in Pavis's vision for a new city. I found new allies against the evils that would have followed me. You remember that for Cam, your mother and I arranged for Uleria's blessing? No? Such I did for each of you. I came out of Old Pavis, to this New City, and I made a life."

The three of them now approached their house. Drozal paused, looking at the building. Then he walked up to it. "It has been a good life. Because I left, you are here, and your brothers and sisters. We have success and status. We have this house." To emphasize, he raised his hand and slapped it on the gray stone of the Rass house.

"Ah!!" Drozal exclaimed, seeming more in suprise than hurt. He jerked his hand back from the wall. Senech laughed to see such an end to his father's speech. Drozal looked down at his hand, and kept staring at it.

Gil stepped up to Drozal. "What is it, father?" Drozal kept staring at his hand. Following his eyes, Gil saw a tiny spot of blood on his father's hand, and a small squashed spider.

Without looking up, without saying a word, without bending his knees, Drozal collapsed onto the street.

After that, a whirl of shouting, first aid attempts, messengers, arrivals and departures. Servants rushed off to gather the rest of the family, and Senech was (strangely enough) sent off to the Chalana Arroy temple for a healer. Gil couldn't find any sign of life in his father. A priestess arrived, and then Fleeter Nemm from the Pavis Temple. Fleeter discussed things with Gil, and asked about their uncle. None of the Rass brothers had ever met an uncle.

After the healer confirmed that Drozal was dead, Gil and his brotheres were confronted by gentle but pointed questions from the White Woman. Were they prepared to make sacrifices to bring their father back? Was it simply time for him to pass on? Gill replied "He has passed unprepared, without a chance to make peace, without a chance to put his affairs in order. He has only seen the beginning of his family's success. We can afford the sacrifice."

Urgent Messages

Gil had the Chalana Arroy Temple prepare. Servants and the sons brought Drozal's body into the manor house.

Some were concerned with the potential for Drozal to manifest the "relife sickness," where those returned from the Paths of the Dead suddenly take on entirely new lives defined by their experience: some abhor what they have felt and join healer cults, others seek it and become grim devotees of death gods like Humakt. But ultimately, the decision was made to proceed. Gil arranged a favor from the head of the Ingilli clan to cover the costs the High Healers would incur in the ceremony.

Asher sequestered himself in an attempt to research the supposed curse his father had mentioned, and with Drozal carried to the Chalana Arroy temple, most of the family waited on the temple steps all night, offering their prayers in support of the effort to retrieve their father's soul from the Paths of the Dead.

Near dawn, a messenger from the nearby Pavis temple arrived, looking freshly awakened. He bore a copper tube sealed in wax. "A great pounding roused the guards at the Old City gates of the temple. When they investigated, they found this message case and a parchment instructing it be delivered to the Rass." With that he left.

Within the tube, a short message:

Whatever you are doing angers our ancestors greatly. Stop it at once! Come to me at noon at the Tower of the Rass--Kruly.

Though several of the siblings were very puzzled, elder members recalled occasional, hushed mentions of an elder uncle of theirs, whom they had never met.

Just after the dawn came word from the High Healer at Pavis: her journey into the underworld had been blocked by a dark, unknown force, resistance not normally encountered in a part of her journey that is normally safe. She could not attempt the quest again while such a force blocked her way.

So the children of the Rass were left with a very short deadline, for no resurrection is possible seven days after death. They were left with no real direction to go to discover the nature of an unknown curse, and a formerly unknown relative suddenly sending mysterious messages and demanding meetings in the wild and lawless Old City.

From New to Old

After tying up a few details, tracking Cam to where he had run and pulling Asher's nose out of the scrolls, the Rass siblings arranged to head to the ancient family tower none of them had ever visited before.