A Lesson Learned is a piece of fiction for Ironfire: The City of Steel, one of the supplements for Cities of Sundara, which is available in versions for 5th Edition and Pathfinder.

Oleg bellowed as bones cracked. Steel clattered as it fell to the paving stones, and the huge man’s roar was cut off suddenly as the butt end of the staff slammed into his jaw, and spun his head. Eyes rolling, he stayed on his feet a moment longer before dropping to the ground in a heap. For a moment the crowd all around was silent, then whistles erupted, followed by curses. Coins exchanged hands as bets were settled. The young man knelt, placing his fingers on Oleg’s neck, and then in front of his mouth.

“He’ll live,” the man with the staff said as he stood. “But I would get him to a healer, if you want him to be able to use that arm again.

Varian’s mouth was tight with anger, his eyes dark and narrow. Fear erupted in them when the man with the staff crossed the circle toward him. The crowd around them went quiet. The man had won the duel handily enough, his spinning staff more than a match for Oleg’s brute muscle. But he had the look of an outlander, and outlanders didn’t always understand the rules of the duel. If he broke the rules the red cloaks would find him eventually, and there would be a trial, but that was small comfort to Varian, whose protector lay insensate in a heap on the flagstones.

“See here, now,” Varian said, taking an involuntary step back. His voice had risen to a shrill pitch that he tried unsuccessfully to swallow. “You won. I commend you. Now if you’ll excuse me-”

The man put a hand on Varian’s shoulder, and Varian’s voice died. The young man leaned down, and held his gaze. He waited a beat, ensuring he had Varian’s undivided attention. The crowd around them was silent as a mural, except for Oleg’s grunt of pain as he attempted to swim back up into consciousness.

“All I wanted was directions,” the man said. “Where is the House of Black Banners?”

Murmurs rose at that, as excited onlookers began to speculate. The man paid them no mind, his gaze steady on Varian. For his part Varian might have looked less stunned if he had been struck. He gestured vaguely behind himself.

“Two blocks down, and turn toward the harbor,” he said, looking at the unkempt man with the staff. “The black flags… they hang from the balcony above the door.”

“Thank you,” the young man said, enunciating the words to drive them home. He let go of Varian’s shoulder, and smoothed the tunic he’d been gripping. “My uncle has been expecting me.”

“Y-your uncle?” Varian asked as the man brushed past him, walking toward the chapter house of one of the city’s more dangerous companies of freelances.

“Come by upon the morrow, if you wish,” the young man called over his shoulder, his voice as friendly as could be. “If you’re willing to step into the ring yourself, I’m sure he’d be happy to teach you to fight your own battles. I doubt you’ll be as pretty as Oleg is by the time the lessons are done, though!”

Teaching a Lesson is a piece of fiction for Ironfire: The City of Steel, one of the supplements for Cities of Sundara, which is available in versions for 5th Edition and Pathfinder.

The square was lively that night. Crowds of people moved over the pavers in small knots, gossiping and laughing. Peddlers with wine casks on their backs, or racks of grilled meats on sticks, moved among them, doing a brisk business as the city’s lights were lit. No one stepped over the line of the circle in the center of the square, though. Blood still glistened on those stones; a slick, dark testament to the differences that had already been settled that night.

Two figures stepped into the circle from the northern end. They were a study in contrasts. One was broad-shouldered and tall, his thick nose scarred from being broken many times, and his long hair unkempt and knotted. The other was shorter, and slender, with an amused sneer on his face. The brute was pale, the other was dusky. The warrior wore steel and boiled leather, his companion painted silk and lambskin. The crowd began to whisper, eyes turning toward the pair of them. Oleg the Grinder had never lost a challenge laid down in the square, and given how easily his master Varian Kadrick took offense it was rare that a week passed that the musclebound enforcer didn’t settle at least one affair in the dueling ring.

It was a moment later when another figure stepped into the ring. He was tall and slender, dressed in a sweat stained tunic and worn down boots. His skin was burned nut brown by the sun, and though he wasn’t large, he seemed strong enough. He carried a staff nearly as tall as he was, but other than that he bore no weapon or armor. He leaned on the staff with both hands, regarding the other two across the circle.

“I call a challenge,” Varian said, his pouty lips curling into a cruel smile.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” the young man in the handmade woolens asked. “I apologized for what happened.”

“Your apology is worth less than nothing,” Varian snarled, turning and spitting on the ground. “I call a challenge. Do you accept, or yield?”

The young man looked around at the crowd for a moment. Dozens of eyes were turned his way. Some were curious. Others pitying. Several had the sharp, hungry look of those sure they were about to see real bloodshed. One man sat on a bench, his gnarled fingers wrapped around the head of his walking stick. He smiled, his white teeth a sharp contrast to his dark skin, and winked at the young man holding the staff.

“I accept,” he said, turning back to face Varian. Oleg smiled as well. It was just as unpleasant as his master’s smile, though for completely separate reasons.

“Teach him a lesson, Oleg,” Varian said, slapping his champion on the shoulder. Oleg drew the sword from his hip, turning it in his grip so the unsharpened edge was on the striking side. Those who’d seen the Grinder fight knew that the blunt edge was no less dangerous for lack of a whetstone. The young man sighed, rolled out his shoulders, and stepped forward.

Loyalty Discounts

Faith is a piece of fiction for Gods of Sundara, which is available in versions for 5th Edition and Pathfinder.

The acolyte knelt on his simple rug, holding still in the silence. The echo of his question was ringing in his ears, and he was fighting a flush of embarrassment that he’d asked it at all. His teacher, an older, handsome woman with her lips stained as red as her robes, regarded him quietly. There was a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth, and lurking behind her eyes. The acolyte dropped his eyes, but kept his head held high.

“I was wondering when you would find the courage to finally let that one off your lips,” Amari said, her voice playful, but not mocking.

“You knew?” Vitar asked.

Amari’s smile finally broke the dam, and her laughter came with it. She shook her head, carefully dabbing the corner of her eye so as not to smudge her carefully-applied kohl. “Vitar, my dear pupil, every priest who has knelt on that rug has wondered that same thing in their hearts. And if I am to tell you the full truth, as I swore to do when I accepted my position, it would not surprise me to learn that most pupils of all the world’s faiths from the great to the small have asked it in one way or another.”

“So there is an answer?” Vitar asked, raising his eyes.

“There are many answers,” Amari replied, nodding to him. “I don’t know which of them is correct, but I can tell you the one I have come to believe over the years.”

Vitar swallowed hard. He’d been expecting to be chastised, or worse to be brushed off. He leaned forward, his hands on his thighs, his eyes bright with expectation. Amari smiled, and for just a moment wondered if she’d looked as young and innocent as her charge when she’d finally gotten up the courage to ask the question that came out of every acolyte’s mouth sooner or later.

“Are the gods real?” Amari asked, repeating Vitar’s question. “Yes. But they are real in the way the sky is real, or that time is real. Or the bottom of the sea. They are too large for us to see in their entirety, or to truly contemplate without feeling very small inside ourselves. For while we may understand them in part, it is often impossible for us to truly know them except in the way that a mouse might know a thunderstorm.”

Vitar swallowed, and nodded. He started rubbing a fraying patch on his robes with his thumb; a nervous habit Amari had yet to break him of. She waited, letting him work through his thoughts in his own time. Part of being a teacher was to know when to let the student do the work for themselves.

“If they are real, but we cannot know them, then why do we do this?” Vitar asked, swallowing.

“You know the answer already, don’t you?” Amari said. It wasn’t a question, though she asked it like one.

“Faith,” Vitar said.

“Faith,” Amari agreed, nodding her head approvingly.

Loyalty Discounts

Promises is a piece of fiction for Archbliss: The City of the Sorcerers, one of the supplements for Cities of Sundara, which is available in versions for 5th Edition and Pathfinder.

Kadar panted, sucking air into his burning lungs. The air was hot and thin, and it made his head spin. He closed his eyes, pressing his cheek to the stone floor. It was incongruously cool, and it helped stop the world from pitching and yawing behind his eyes.

“Again,” Soria said through the grate in the wall.

Kadar bristled, clenching his teeth. He had been in the black cell for weeks, now, and he had done everything asked of him. The walls had glowed, and he’d unleashed everything he had until the fires had burned down to embers. He slept, he ate and he trained, but it never seemed enough.

“Again,” Soria repeated, lowering the grate once more.

Letting out a wordless cry, Kadar exploded in flames. They rose higher and higher, slamming against the ceiling and licking down the walls. The veins within the cell burned bright, sucking in the fire, until there was nothing but a slightly charred smell on the air. Kadar collapsed bonelessly, shivering in every limb.

“Good,” Soria said, the single word of praise more than she usually offered. “You’re almost ready, now.”

Kadar wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that soon Soria would open that door, and guide him out into the city where he could meet others like himself. Where he could finally breathe the cool, open air, and feel the sun on his face again. As the light faded from the walls, and he heard Soria’s steps whisper down the hall, Kadar closed his eyes.

He wanted to believe they’d let him out. He wanted to believe the promises were true. But deep down, he didn’t. Not anymore.

Loyalty Discounts