Yeoldebard
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The Hospice of the Blessed Maiden
Yeoldebard commented on Yeoldebard's story chapter in The Hospice of the Blessed Maiden
The Deer did point out that he'd killed Arlo before, yet Arlo is still alive. If Pharasma doesn't want someone coming back, they're not coming back. Ergo, Pharasma is okay with Arlo being alive for some reason. At his core, the Deer isn't a violent person. He acts as a midwife, bringing new life into the world. It is his compassionate nature that sees him used as an assassin. The church recognises that he will ease his targets into the afterlife, and send them off as gently as he can. -
It seemed they always found their way back to West Dock. Passing warehouse after warehouse, Arlo steeled himself for the confrontation ahead. The walk through the city had been quiet, sombre. Carts rolled through empty streets, piled high with corpses. To the south, smoke filled the air with the sickening stench of burning bodies. And waiting in front of the hospice itself, a mask Arlo couldn’t escape made itself known. “The church of Pharasma has heard your concerns,” the Deer said quietly.
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The gala opened with a bang. Arlo reloaded as his shot blasted through a zombie’s head. The other five creatures turned with deceptive slowness, stumbling toward the group. Another shot caught one in the shoulder, and Godwin stepped up. The paladin’s sword swung easily, decapitating the injured undead. At his feet, Zuriel leapt back, dodging the falling head with a loud hiss. Beside them, Arlo engaged with his rapier, taking one more shot at the nearest zombie before skewering its head with
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“Do you do that every morning?” Godwin averted his eyes as Coradiel groaned out Arlo’s name. He was already half dressed, but his eye caught motion in the bed, the blanket rising and falling in a way that made little sense until he realised- “Every morning,” Coradiel agreed, rising naked from the bed. Godwin looked away again, his face heating. “It’s part of my prayers to Arshea. If I ignore the goddess, I lose my divine protection.” “You have to… touch yourself… to prove your devotion to
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Preparations for their next march began at 2am, not three days after taking Alexandria. Louis formed up with their demi-brigade on the road just inside Alexandria’s gate, waiting with growing impatience as other soldiers marched past. Their heart cheered at the sight of field guns rolling between divisions — at least their next conquest should prove easier than the first, not that Alexandria had been that difficult to subdue. Beside them, Sakis looked at the cannon indifferently. Around 5am, w
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They couldn’t fight a vampire. Not without serious preparation. Sera and Godwin split up outside the alley, Godwin to Arlo’s apartment, Sera to the Cathedral of Pharasma. She met the Deer outside the church. The masked man stared impassively as Sera hurriedly explained the situation. Holy water, stakes, cloves of garlic, they needed the works. And Sera knew the church was bound to help. An undead like a vampire, loose on the city? Such a thing would be disastrous normally. Unfortunately, Ser
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Depends. Undead in general are immune to disease, but that doesn't mean they magically have a cure to every disease out there.
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For several days, there was nothing for them to do. Godwin chafed as the cry went out each morning. “Bring out your dead!” Every call was just a reminder of how bad things were getting. How impotent he was. There was no way for Godwin to fight the plague — he wasn’t a healer. Even Sera was struggling. Pharasma was giving her [Remove Disease] spells, but she could only cast two a day, one of which had to be used on herself daily to prevent infection. Dawn broke on the third day since their
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A mousy woman met the group as they returned to Arlo and Rusne’s apartment. Old, with jaundiced eyes that darted furtively, the woman groaned as she stood up from her seat on the floor outside the apartment. “Are you the Korvosan Four?” she asked quietly, glancing warily at Rusne and Coradiel. “That’s us,” Arlo replied tiredly. Bandying words with Doctor Davaulus had taken any semblance of good mood from him — the man was like an infant when it came to medical knowledge. No, medicine did not
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White marble towered above the surrounding shops and homes. The Grand Vault of Abadar was a radiant vision of opulence. Morning sunlight glowed off the facade, and Arlo found himself squinting against it, as though the god himself was standing before the kitsune. Yet before the magnificent doors, at the base of steep stairs, an unruly crowd gathered, demanding entrance to the temple. Acolytes and city guards held the crowd at bay, but the defenders were haggard, exhausted by what Arlo could on
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“What are we searching for exactly?” Coradiel hesitated as he handed out potions of [Water Breathing]. Arlo knew that look — a small doubt had crept into the paladin’s mind. What were they searching for? If the ship really was the source of the coming plague, exploring it might give clues to finding out what plague they were up against. That was the only benefit Arlo could see. The same effect could be wrought from a [Diagnose Disease] spell once they found a patient. Forewarned was well and g
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Something poked against his butt. As he drifted back into consciousness, Arlo knew exactly what that something was. Yet he didn’t move. The world was still for a timeless moment. His bleary mind worked sluggishly at the problem. Of course Godwin was hard. Of course he was going to press that hardness into Arlo. What was Arlo going to do about it? He should get out of bed. He should get ready for the day and wait for Godwin to wake up, and never speak of this. But he was tired. Tired of r
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Arlo awoke slowly. Warmth enveloped him from all directions. Static threatened his fur from the blanket covering him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. His mind was too busy piecing together the night’s activities. There was something about Elysium, and Desna. He’d been swinging. Someone spoke to him about love, and hope. The warmth moved. The bed underneath him creaked, and the blanket flew off him. Arlo grumbled his displeasure, reaching blindly for the errant fabric. His hand landed on
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Egypt? Doubtful. It was the middle of summer; who in their right mind would order an invasion of the desert in summer? Louis kept their ears peeled for the true destination, but everyone seemed to insist they were going to Egypt. What’s more, Sans-Culotte had been renamed. It was now L’Orient — damning proof of their destination. They were bound for Egypt. In layers of wool. In the middle of summer. Louis was dead. Yet it took a week before the fleet finally emerged from Malta. Setting off
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To be fair, the cosmology of Golarion is divided into various factions along alignment. If a deity personally reaches out to smite a lich, that opens the door for any other deity to do the same, which would almost certainly ignite a celestial war that would destroy Golarion. This is why Desna's one of the scariest deities in the pantheon as a whole tbh; she has personally slain multiple demon lords, and it is only through the sheer grace of other good-aligned deities that war has been averted thus far.
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Arlo gazed around their new home. Barely furnished, the place was badly in need of cleaning. The single window in his room was beyond grimy, the kitchen still held bits of mouldy food from the last owner, and the walls were some kind of brown mush colour. A hundred gold jingled in his coin purse, reminding him just how broke he was. Some of that would go toward food. Some toward paint for his room. Let Rusne account for her half of the apartment; she had nearly 200 gold left the last Arlo knew.
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Gaekhen’s body was returned to Cressida Kroft in one piece. A visit to Pharasma’s Cathedral ensured any residual negative energy was dealt with, the body was repaired, and the corpse prepared properly for the Shoanti. By the time Arlo saw Gaekhen again — of course he refused to enter the cathedral — the body looked no more than an hour or two dead. As they moved through the city, Arlo listened for rumours. A ghost ship had been spotted off the Old Dock. Cults of Urgathoa were searching for way
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The sound of parchment tearing filled the quiet library. Arlo rubbed at his arm as Sera ripped the scroll in half again, completely ruining the magic contained on it. “We could have used that. It was [Command Undead], not [Animate Dead].” “I refuse to even command a corpse,” Sera said vehemently. “It goes against everything I stand for.” “I agree with Sera. If there’s undead to fight, we’ll destroy it, not command it,” Godwin added quietly. “I hope we live to regret this decision,” Arlo
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Boards fell from the sealed door. Godwin assaulted them with a vengeance, tearing them out with nary a tool in sight. Arlo shook his head as a plank went flying. Repressed rage? The anguish of loss? Emotions drove Godwin regardless. Arlo would need to take the lead on this fight. The door was freed. Godwin wrenched it open. An unholy reek slammed into them. Seconds later, a deformed arm slammed into Godwin. The paladin was shoved back, his HP dropping by 6. He brought his shield to bear with
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They delved quickly. They delved deep. Eerie patches of glowing moss lined the walls, providing just enough light to see by, albeit light that was cold and blue. Sera had already cautioned the group to avoid touching the stuff — who knew what was diseased and what wasn’t down here? The deeper they walked, the mustier the air grew. Rot developed quickly, and Arlo adopted his vigilante guise just for the lemon-scented mask that would keep his nose somewhat free of the sickly-sweet smell of death
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Let's hope not.
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“Do you want to be with me?” Not, “I’m not interested”. Not “Leave me alone”. Nothing. Varion was incensed. His own son, shacking up with the Acadamae Killer. Okay, so Arlo hadn’t killed Cassandra. It didn’t matter. He was a human — kitsune, whatever — and he’d be dead before they knew it. Godwin was setting himself up to get hurt. Again. Varion remembered that crush he’d had when he was 80 years old, pining after that aiuvarin. Thirty years later, and the aiuvarin was dead. They’d had to
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Summoning him mid march is already crazy risky. Doing so in a ship packed full of sailors and soldiers? The only thing saving them in that instance is the sheer darkness below decks.
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Cressida Kroft blushed furiously when she read the letters from Amprei. She handed them off to a clerk, and slid a handful of platinum crowns across the table. “Five hundred gold for a job well done,” the field marshall said. “Go and rest. You’ve earned it.” Sera scooped up the coins, distributing them in a matter of seconds. She didn’t trust the others to do the deed — Arlo and Godwin refused to meet each other’s gaze, and Varion was glaring at them both. Varion. He was an enigma to her.
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The excitement of departure was hampered by cruel reality — it took some hours for the fleet to properly organise outside Toulon before they could truly be underway. Not that Louis was aware of the delay — they’d quickly been stuffed back into the upper gun deck by an officer even before leaving the rade. Requests went out to open the gun ports. They were immediately and ruthlessly quashed, relegating the passengers to wallow in foul darkness. Above them, the sound of sailors in various evolut
