The Suffering of Asid
Location: Irem Zhat al Imad: Marketplace - Alhambra
Date: 10/09/2014
Cast: Siroteph & Sol
Plot: The Hollow

The Suffering of Asid

The market was not as relaxed and jovial as it usually is. Any beginning of a ruckus is met with guard and suspicious eye, concern that whatever was coming out of the desert had come again. Tension is thick in every souk. Siroteph has made himself visible and available to the people, lingering around the temple and markets throughout the day, holding his meetings and affairs at street cafes. The people needed reassuring, and if the brute Amir couuld not provide that -

At the moment, he is merely standing near one of the fountains, one hand resting lightly on the pommel of one of his blades, while the other was curled behind him. Guarding posture. Old, old, dusty ancienet habits coming back to him while he surveyed the markets.

Sol pads out from the sands, covered though there's a sole curl of bright rosegold that betrays her as she enters the city and-spying the distinctive figure of the Amir, moves towards the Amir.

Siro nearly looks right past the woman, another traveler, showing no signs of trouble, but the curl draws his attention back, snapping it back. He takes a half step, pauses, then shakes his head, reminding himself that he was not actually on guard duty, and yes, he could leave his post. His hand falls from his blade as he walks to meet Sol, hands open to his sides in welcoming. "It has been so long, Sol, it is good to see you in the Light's City again."

Sol doesn't hug him-but it's a near thing that has her shifting energetically between tiny bare feet. Her eyes shine betraying her smile even though her face is covered, "Amir! How fare you? I had heard…strange things from this place."

Siro takes her shoulders in his broad hands, squeezing them warmly, a compromise for this public place, appeasing that strange muted sense of joy he could conjure up. "I am well, but I fear my desert is not," he admits, moving to guide Sol away from the streets and toward the fountain again. "Has word of it traveled far?" he asks first, then closely after, though a much calmer figure than her energetic one, "Is that why you have come?"

Sol admits, "When one is an ambassador, one has occasion to listen to the news that trickles in through port. It is what pursuaded me to lave Amber to come myself, yes-but in truth I had hoped to see a friendly face. Is something amiss?" those big gold flecked eyes search his attentively.

Siroteph looks thoughtful a moment, considering Sol, before nodding and telling her gravely, "Something is certainly wrong - though we have not learned what yet." He turns, staring to move away, but not without first gesturing for her to follow, to guide her along, toward a hospice near the palace. "We have had two cases so far. I am certain there will be more," he explains along the way. "Two men who have come from the desert, completely distraught and begging to be cleansed. One has already passed on."

Sol's lips turn downward with a gentle frown, "Would it please you for me to perform such a cleansing?" she looks waaay up at the severe looking mummy.

"I do not know if such a thing is possible," Siro admits. He leads her up into the hospice, through the halls, to a room being guarded by royal guards, who admit Siro and Sol to the room where a man is weathered to the point of skeletal, huddled in the corner, silently sobbing.

Sol's eyebrows lift and her head tilts, "It depends on what ails him. Poison, illness, divine curses-will be broken." She frowns gently, "If it fails, I doubt he will survive the night." She frowns gently.

The door closes behind them, and the man looks up from his knees. The man was still wasting away. He was dying, but he looked as though he should already be dead. "He eats the rations of three men every day," Siro tells Sol. "He drinks enough water to water a caravan. He has not slept that any has seen…Our Priestesses have prayed over him, to no avail - " The man starts to babble, most of it too hoarse and week to be made out, but now and again, words are caught… "…see them…the dark….dead"

Sol frowns, "I may not have any more power than the priestess-but it is worth the cost to me to try." She removees her veils and shakes her hair loose offering a kind, gentle smile to the man and inquires, "Do you see me?" it's a strange question to ask a madman but it makes perfect sense to sol.

Siro dips his head, and takes a step back, while gesturing her forward. Unlike most other women, he is not moved to the need to guard this one. He knows her skill well and does not fear for her from this wretched man. He didn't really Sol. He's too busy babbling. He's too busy looking all about the room, never meeting the eyes of either of them. "I do not know that he has much of a mind left to save," Siro says from across the room. "The doctors have said for some days that he would be dead by morning, but he continues to defy the prognosis."

Sol begins to sing softly, soon she's stomping out a primal beat with her feet and gutteral huffed prayer tumbles from her pink lips and those curls fall every which way.

Siro falls quiet again. He watches, only allowing himself the slimmest glimmer of hope that Sol's abilities would bring the man peace - and perhaps any that came after him. But as Sol works through her ritual prayer, the man is unphased, except to start at the stomp of her feet. No poison, no disease, no wound ails him except that he is starving to death despite eating, thirsting to death despite drinking, and yet… Not dying. He gives up babbling and goes back to just silently wailing, rocking pitifully and throwing his head back with an open mouth cry that makes no sound at all.

Sol frowns and looks to siro Gravely, "You are right to be concerned."

Siro frowns that awful brutal frown of his as he steps closer. "So it is no natural cause then?"

Sol shakes her head, "Were I you, I would find one who is marked by the road to see if they will know this one."

Siroteph frowns even further, brow furrowing deep. "I do not know any marked by the road," he states, as though that should be very obvious.

Sol hrrrms, "I know a few-one is a very skilled mage and very old friend." She frowns gently, "I do not know how to find him." She frowns gently.

Siroteph rumbles somewhere deep in his chest and beckons Sol to walk with him toward the door, opening it for her. "While I am uncomfortable with any consort with those touched by the Road, it can not be ruled out. But if it is that? It means the Black Sands are no longer dormant, which is a rather frightening thing. You must be discreet on the matter until we know if that fact is true, to avoid panic in the people."

Sol's chin dips, "of course." She frowns gently, "The road claimed Kitezh-I will do all I may to assit you in ridding your homeland of the troublesome blight."

Once out of the room, once down the broad hallway, Siro reaches out to curl his hand lightly at Sol's elbow, squeezing it carefully in his mitt. "I can grant you rooms at the Palace if you will have them. It is the very least which we can offer for any aid you will have, and I would meet your friend. We can have word sent immediately to reach him"

Sol smiles wryly, "I know not where he is. I will have to dream-and hope he hears my plea for his attendance." she look up, her pleasure at seeing her friend muted by the gravity of the concerns, "There have only been two? Nothing else strange?"

"Only the two, though I wonder at when the next will arrive. If it had been only one…I might not look for antoher, but two? We are nearing the same time between the first and the second. I expect to see a third any day now," he sighs. "That does not account for how long it might take the unfortunate soul to find their way through the desert, if it is truth."

Sol tilts her head, "Shall walk the desert to seek others, or clues as to what is causing this? Does no know know these people?"

"No one had spoken up for them. I hope to catch the next early enough, that he or she might have more answers of where they have come from than thsi man did. I never spoke to the first. The Great Desert is a vast place to seek for a clue without some direction first - but if we can find none…"

Sol considers, "They must have made it away from one of the common routes-or there'd be more than two, no?"

Siro nods just once. "That man, he said he became lost during a sandstorm, and was found by a caravan, but it did not sound that he was on any of the well traveled routes, and I do not know of any caravans which would exist off of those safe routes. Though, I must admit, I am not so savy in the people who actually use the routes."

Sol smiles warmly, "no, why would you be?" She frowns gently, "Shall I remain then?"

Siro steps back out of the hospice, but does not leave the small court at the front of the building. "Only if you must to seek your friend, otherwise…I would be grateful for the company, if you would stay in Imad."

Sol smiles warmly, "Ah, I may seek The hierophant here-he is among other things-a mage of dreams. I will stay, perhaps I will think of others to appeal to for assistance."

Siro finds a smile for Sol and rumbles a quiet and sincere, "Thank you for coming."

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License