Hey all! It's me, Brea again! This one here is a short drable I wrote a while back. It's based in the Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting of Eberron. I wanted an explanation for a particularly unique warforged character I was playing, so I wrote this. It's about the man who created the character I was playing. I'm rather fond of it, and though it could be expanded upon, I dont see that happening anywhere in the near future.
I have of course taken a little bit of artistic license with the setting. And this was written before they really explained much about the Mornlands, so I made up my own version of things that happened around that time. But I still dont own it! All I own is this particular story, the idea that spawned it, Mihel, Jorln, and Kristi.
Please dont use my characters without asking me, thanks for reading.
Rated teen because I'm not sure if mentioning that someone has a "mistress" counts as an adult theme.
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Mihel D'Cannith, a handsome man of 49, looked longingly back along the train of carts and carriages leaving Cyre. He was leaving for debates at The Twelve in Karrnath, along with several of his colleagues. Many aristocrats as well as Cyre's ambassadors were leaving for Thronehold. All this work in the hope of peace and all I can think of is my wife and how horrible it is to leave home in her pregnancy, he sighed to himself.
"Hey old man, stop your glooming and come tell the lads about the time you and the patriarch were caught stealing components from your school's stores." That was Jorln, Mihel's assistant and apprentice. A decent young man, about 19 years old, but he had trouble grasping his master's theories about the Warforged. He particularly struggled with the theories on their sentience and their souls. His lack of sensitivity towards them was a matter that often caused Mihel to worry.
Mihel smiled wryly. It was wonderful to his mind that he could influence so many of the house's youths, but he realized that few of them would ever understand how important it was that the Warforged be treated as people not machines. Just like their parents, they would turn a blind eye to the fact that the Warforged were developing personalities, emotions, and that their forming sentience was being warped horribly by the fact that they were exposed only to killing and battle.
That was one of the things he was going to debate at The Twelve about. People need to realize that what they are doing to the Warforged is as horrible as training children for combat before teaching them anything else. The Warforged may be fully formed and have the intellectual capability of an adult, but they all begin as blank slates with no idea why they are going out and fighting. Many of them do not even realize that what they are trained to do is not all there is to life.
Mihel firmly believed that it was the responsibility of the creators of the Warforged to make sure that moral-less monsters were not released upon the world. This war would end eventually, and the Warforged would loose their life's purpose, and what then? What then will the world do with trained killers wandering the land, not knowing what to do with themselves, not knowing that much of the killing they had done was wrong.
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Three days later, as Mihel dried his face from shaving, the ground began to shake. The earth shook hard enough to wake the town, still asleep in the predawn light. It shook so hard shutters rattled, chairs fell over, and books came off their shelves.
Mihel rushed to the window of his inn room, throwing the shutters wide open. And then, the wind came, barely noticable at first, and then all at once it was gale force and on it was a terrible noise. A screeching, booming noise so loud that it nearly deafened. And the sky to the south lit up.
Mihel could feel the sheer power of magic driving all this, and it terrified him. All the more when he relized that the only place this could be coming from was Cyre. And just as he was realizing that his wife and child were in severe danger, everything went deathly silent. The wind dropped to a slight breeze then died all together.
The scholar stood there stunned, this couldn't be happening. Not to Cyre, not to his home, not to his wife, to his only child! "This, this cannot be! Nothing could have such power… Nothing," He backed way from the window. Hastily he donned his coat, and raced down the stairs of the inn. He wasn't the best at riding, but he had to go, he had to see that his family was safe.
Just as he got to the stable doors, Jorln stepped into his path. "Mihel, don't be a fool, you can't just leave!"
"And what makes you able to say what I may and mayn't do, Jorln? My family, is in Cyre, I must go to them!" Mihel growled as he pushed past his apprentice.
Jorln grabed his shoulder, as two large strong men came from the other end of the stable to bar his path. "I'm sorry, Mihel, people are already being sent. But I have been ordered by the Ambassador to keep you from doing anything rash. You're too valuable, you know that if anything happened to the Patriarch that you're going to be one of those looked at as a candidate for the posistion, simply because of all you know."
Mihel turned and stared in shock at his apprentice, he hadn't thought a moment about the patriarch. And seeing the worry on Jorln's face, and the tears on his cheeks he realized, "This is as much tragedy for you as for me, your mother was home in Cyre… The world is fallen to shambles before our very eyes. I am sorry Jorln." Mihel embraced the lad who had been much like a son to him, his thoughts dwelling on their families, and the unborn child in his wife's belly.
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Two months later Mihel sat in the study of his flat in Sharn, the other prominent members of house Cannith had all paid him several visits since what has become known as the Mournlands incident. All paying their respects to the most likely candidate for patriarch, all sizing him up, all wondering if he'll be on their side politically.
"Politics," he spat the word out as though it tasted like poison, "the very thought that they want me to participate in their disgraceful mind game makes me ill. Their hollow words, their empty sympathies… Even though they had family that died as well they're too concerned about their games to let it slow them down for even a day!"
"It is not that bad, sir. After all, I would rather you took position as Patriarch than some of the other candidates. You at least give a damn about something other than power." Jorln sat in the easy chair just across a small table from Mihel. Wine and cheese sat on the table, and though the cheese was nearly untouched the wine was mostly gone.
"Lad, I've avoided house polotics my whole life. I've always hated it, always will. I don't want to run this thing, and even if I did they would call my changes too drastic and I'd be booted from the position of Patriarch in a matter of days. They never listened to me before, they aren't about to now. The only reason I'm considered for patriarch is because the last one and I were so close, and I know much of what he did. I know the secrets of the house better than many of those left alive."
As Mihel took another long drink from his wine glass, Jorln gazed thoughtfully at the liquid in his own. "So what you're really saying is that to the truly powerful people left in the house, you're either an asset or a danger, right? You don't know the blackmail material, but when it comes to the 'Forged, nobody alive knows more than you do now."
Mihel nodded, "Accept the position and I'm damned, deny it and I'm dead. The threats have already been made behind closed doors."
"What?" Jorln whispered in astonishment, "You've actually been threatened? By whom?"
"If I told you that I'd be in twice the danger and so would you," Mihel smiled wryly, "you see now why I avoided this?"
Jorln nodded slowly, "What if you dissapeared? I know somebody who can find a way or two to make that happen…"
"And just how does an apprentice wizard come to know such a person?"
"On accident, women never cease to amaze me." Jorln grinned broadly, "So when should I arrange for the meeting?"
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The wizard, Professor Nicofra, pored over the charts and diagrams spread across his desk, altering little bits here, adding a note or two there. A doll sat atop a stack of papers on the right side of the desk, it looked more like miniature statue carved with exquisite detail than a simple doll though. On a stack to the left and center sat a silver polygon paper weight.
A scholarly looking young man in his twenties, his brown hair and beard clipped short, stood in the doorway to the workshop arms crossed over his chest. His coal gray eyes were scowling. "Old man, what is so important that you would call me from my home in the middle of the night for? And if this has got anything to do with your mad theories on elementals save me the trouble and tell me now so I can return home to sleep."
The Wizard carefully set aside his pen, and put the stopper in his ink bottle, before he proceeded to with equal care stack the papers strewn across his desk. "Should not an assistant speak with more respect to his employer?" the old man asked raising a salt-and-pepper eye-brow as he looked up from his desk at the younger one. "Really Jorln, spiting an old man in need because you wish to return to the side of your mistress… I thought better of you my lad."
The young man's jaw clenched, "I was not with Kristi, Mihel, and she is not my mistress, we're engaged for gods' sake!"
"So you say, Lad, so you say," Mihel said smiling and shaking his head. Jorln always got touchy when teased about his beloved.
Mihel's hair had more grey in it than it did before, but he still maintained all his old grace. When once his back had been ramrod straight, it was now just slightly hunched from slouching over a desk for long hours at a time. His warm brown eyes held a deep determination as he spoke now with all seriousness, "Jorln, I need you to arrange a trip for me. You recall that deactivated forge hidden out by that farm?"
Jorln's eyes narrowed a minute, "Just what have you in mind, Mihel," his eyes widened in astonishment, "you mean to say you've finished it? But you've only been working on it for a year, maybe two!"
Mihel stood and shook his head as he took the new stack of papers and put them carefully away in a case. "I've been working on the pattern on and off most of my life Jorln, it's only these past couple years that I did so much all at once. You and Kristi will be getting married soon, you deserve more time to yourselves than I give you."
"And you want desperately a child of your own," Jorln smiled at his old friend and mentor. "Just because Krihsti and I are getting married doesn't mean you have to go away Mihel, and I think helping you raise the 'Forged would be good practice for us."
Mihel looked at him, "Lad, if you're not careful with those sentimental words you're going to make this old man cry. Did you know that there was a time I never thought you'd understand that the 'Forged were people too?"
Jorln laughed, "Yes I did, I was quite a fool then. So, you'll be wanting to head out tomorrow in the evening I assume?"
"Yes, that is exactly when. Will you be coming with?"
"Of course, you're too old to be going anywhere on your own. You could break a hip and be stranded for hours without food before someone found you."
Mihel tried to scowl but it was rather simple to tell that he was trying not to smile, this was an old joke between them. "Very funny young man. I do hope you'll bring Kristi along, I don't want to have to change your diapers."
Jorln laughed and after a moment so did Mihel.