THALAND: JUSTICAR Part 1

Art "The Foreign Market" by shutupandwhisper

“Where to begin…Where to begin?” Thaland mused as he walked through the milling late night crowds. His mind whirled with the copious knowledge provided by the undead archaeologist Andronicus. Perhaps even more startling to the former watch commander was the fact that he never needed to refer to the copious notes or maps he had taken down. Ah, well, perhaps he might need them later, or make a gift of them to an honest watchman of his squad.
His mind jumped back to his last morning as a human. His death and rebirth as Justicar. His men… “Are they still searching for me?” Thaland wondered. “Do they presume me dead, taken by the same creature that tore the whore-mistress apart?” Questions began to surface in Thaland’s mind; should he make contact with his men? Did he dare do so? While both he and they could certainly help each other, would that put them in more danger or distract him from his larger purpose?

After a few tortured moments of deliberation, he decided that Thaland needed to remain ‘dead’ to his squad. He must remain an anonymous aid to the few honest and idealistic watch in Stormhaven. If the guilds did not know who their new enemy was, they could not know who was precious to him. Thus, they could neither blackmail him nor hurt his loved ones in retaliation.

While Thaland certainly knew the surface features of Stormhaven as well as he knew his own hard, battle-scarred hands, the warren of natural and dug tunnels under the city were entirely new. He decided to walk the tunnels’ routes along the surface so that he would know which houses might have access to the subterranean city. With that determination, he began the task of tying the surface features to the tunnels. If Inns, taverns, whorehouses or baths sat atop the routes, he would enter and note what point of the structure was closest to the tunnel. He knew he could open any and all closed doors in the other buildings along the routes, but chose to adhere to his existing respect for people’s privacy so long as there was no reason to suspect criminal activity inside.

After completing the task of ‘tunnel tying’, Thaland was astounded to note that the leading edge of Sol’s Chariot was just over the eastern horizon, painting the sea with shades of red and orange. To the west, the Stormhaven Mountains echoed the colors from the barren, pale rock slabs of their peaks How had he done that? Yesterday, such a task would have taken a full day, if not longer. “Okay,” he thought to himself. “I apparently can either move faster than time or through time, or I can move very, very quickly but it seems ‘normal’ to me.” He shook his head slowly as he pondered his new situation. “On the positive side, I can buy a pie at the market and it will still be hot when I get home.”

Thaland thought better while moving. That ability had worked well for him while walking his patrols. It should also work well in his current position, he reasoned. Eventually he found his feet retracing his accustomed path to the plaza that surrounded the public well near his former (and, he supposed, current) apartment. Did a Justicar ‘live’ anywhere? He apparently had no further need for rest, food or drink, yet he was not yet ready to completely sever himself from worldly desires, pleasures or comforts. He searched his mind and feelings and concluded that though he’d become a Justicar (though he did not yet fully understand what that was), he was not an ascetic. A Justicar should still be able to enjoy the pleasures of the life they had enjoyed before, shouldn’t they? The training and education program for this duty had been quite…truncated. Thaland supposed he would learn the rules as he went.

Previous to his conversion to the rank of Justicar, Thaland, a Captain of the Guard, Docks Division, had often concluded his overnight duties by relaxing on one of the benches or sections of waist-high wall that encircled the well and watched the glory of Sol’s Chariot ascending the eastern horizon. Today, regardless of his vastly changed situation, he indulged in his familiar ritual. The final portion of Sol’s Chariot rose above the horizon concluded his watching light and life return to the sky and city.

The good wives or eldest daughters of the local households made their daily pilgrimages to the plaza; fetching water for their respective households. Thaland’s gaze turned to the rooming house he rented a room in. At one time, the building had been a mansion, Thaland believed. Time and neglect had taken their inevitable toll on the structure though. The steps, inside and out sagged, roof tiles, bricks and stones were missing from the roof and walls. He was not a carpenter or mason, but nevertheless he reasoned that the structure needed to be repaired soon or it would be too far gone to save.

Goodwife Macon, his landlady, emerged from the doorway with Diesca, her eldest daughter. Thaland had occasionally caught Diesca gazing at him or loitering over her duties when they brought her into his proximity. At nineteen, Diesca was practically an old maid, and Goody Macon had occasionally made none-too-subtle hints that Thaland would make an excellent father for the children Diesca wanted. Thaland had only the previous day wished he could know Diesca’s true, inner-most thoughts on the matter. Now, as he gazed upon her admittedly desirable form, he found he could.

Diesca’s surface thoughts were occupied with the upcoming duties of her day. The deeper thoughts were divided between the confusing desires the Watch Captain aroused in her mind and body and concern because he wasn’t around. The Captain had been supposed to come back before noon the previous day. She’d stayed up late, watching for him and awakened early to find his room was empty and undisturbed. Now though she desperately scanned the crowd, she didn’t see him in the plaza.

Her mind was obsessing over the rumors about what had happened yesterday in the dock warehouse district. The stories said the Thieves’ Guild had trapped a troublesome Watch Captain in a warehouse and used a Blood Magic spell to kill everything in the building. A different version told of Grandfather Bones, the ancient vampire who was said to serve as the guilds’ assassin, had gone rogue, killing several Guild enforcers who’d been there to witness the captain’s demise. Both versions wondered at the fact that the captain’s body had not been found. Was he alive? Had the ageless blood-sucker drug him back to its lair like so many others?