02-ADDRESSING AN UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS

In a small, dusty, rented office overlooking the rabid mobs that clog the streets of the once powerful capital of Pinchasha, the former holy seat of the Pinchashakan Religion; a man sits alone at an ornate desk. Stewing in the shadows he stared with no small amount of trepidation at the top of his finely crafted desk, sipping forlornly on his brandy. He had tried to save the people, and truth be told he had a minor success in the endeavor, but it has also cost him his peace, his love, and a dear friend. No, if he were to succeed it would not be alone. He needed skilled hand and feet. He hungered for the skills he could never possess, and would have to find others to fill such gaps and weaknesses.

He had been a man of some means due to luck, and the providence of his birth. Though he had no magic to speak of that mattered little, as there are many talents one can build outside of the arcane arts and studious study.In his youth he had loved medicine, fashion, travel, hunting, and shows. Prior to the rebellion Pinchasha had been a hub of development in most if not all of those areas. Its smoking rooms and tea houses housing vibrant discussions. Place touted as a home for free though. Something that was sometimes punished for merely existing within the holy capital. Oh how he longed for those days and the love of his youth, but now was not the time for rose tinted lens and longing, it was time for action.

Before him sits 13 letters, each written by his own hand, but in a manner as to make his handwriting unidentifiable even from one letter to the next. A layman would have assumed all to have been written by different senders. He had taken the time to prepare them all, choosing his words with great care, for he may only get a single shot at convincing these men to aid him in his goals. They have been folded and fashioned with simple wax seals lined their envelopes. The first 12 letters, sealed with a red wax and stamped in the shape of a corvid, and the final is the same corvid, but its outline is dark gray and pressed into a seal of white wax.

It would be the work of many long hours to deliver the envelopes to their intended recipients, but if he were correct in his thinking it would make all the difference in the world. The twelve men it had chosen to join him in saving the doomed from a chilling fate. The fate that awaited those tried under the hate filled eyes of mob justice, all to be torn to shreds by a holy implement that stood before the grand chapel that stood at the heart of Pinchasha. Many of these men would be upstanding and see the need in protecting and saving, some would do it for the sport of the thing, a few given the simplest task and most deadly of task would go to those that if discovered would find themselves standing against the burgeoning rebellious government and its mob. Oh how the world had turned on its head, for this man didn’t style himself a leader of men, but as his father had often explained, “Son, if something needs doing, it is no good to wait for someone else to start, for each moment of hesitation comes with a cost.”

Dreading the task before him he rose, draped his threadbared cloke, for it would do no good to be mistakenly seen as a local noble or member of the deposed clergy within the capital. Nay it could very well be a death sentence given recent events. He would be spreading himself thin in delivering the correspondence as he would have to travel to and from the neighboring Island nation known as the Republica Ultaea. He had taken to odd hobbies in his youth training with everyone from performers to brigeons and urchins, and had grown very skilled. He had polished his unmagical skills until they shone, and know he had become a strange kind of renaissance man, but the tools in his kit had never been truly tested in the real world. As a school boy he had been able to turning his skills to pranking his fellows, but never in a real world setting. Using his unique skills, he would place the letters on each man without their own notice, and in a week hence, if all went according to plan, he would be meeting these brave men and women. It was darring, but it was necessary to create a collective of skilled individuals to see his plans done. Here right beneath his enemies noses he would collect his proposed agents, so their work could begin in earnest.

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His only regret was the lack of a confidant he could rely on, but he’d found that in recent days that even love could turn sour and bitter with time, and it would be best if he handled as much of things as possible. His only bull work against the dangers he sought to put himself in would be his continued anonymity. It would be hard to get a group of strangers to believe in a masked man, so he knew he would have to prove himself to them, but only time would tell, and he was getting sick of his own dill-dallying.

With a deep sigh, he departed his makeshift offices, and made for a well known salon that had once belonged to someone very close to him. It was just two blocks north of the blood square, main chapel, and near the northern barricade. Shamease, a well known establishment to the young and thoughtful. It was sitting room, that had been a home to intelligent thought and discord. He had spent many a gay day in his youth among like minded thinkers, never a talker at open mics, poetry slams, or the occasional debate, but always a listener. It was a place of fond memories, however the very same discourse had lead to the dissemination of revolutionary thought that had eventually turned the capital upon its head.

The salon had morphed from a pleasing memory into den of dangerous men and women who had allow their grievances to turn them blood thirsty. Their fervor had become infectious as it had swept through Panchasha like a disease. A fever that had burn brightly in the hearts of the downtrodden citizenry. Their thirst seem endless and would not be easily saited, as it had ramped up to almost a thousand killings a day, justified by hearsay and kangaroos courts. It wasn't just the corrupt clergy and noble that had been sacrificed to the new government of the people. Sure it had started that was, but it had grown to include any all related or thought to be sympathetic to the old regime. No one was spared their vengeance, not the elderly, not the young, and not the innocent. They were all sacrificed upon the alter, below the skeletal remains of the main chapel. Its visage looking down upon the square.

Since the beginning of the uprising, Shamease had been converted to a hub for the movement, and in a strange way the home of his first, and most likely dangerous potential ally. Dangerous not for the threat she posed, but for the fact she would be an inside man of sorts. Working from within the very heart of the enemy. If she sided with him, the information she could provide would be paramount to his success.

He only wished it could set in his plan in motion before any more could die.