These early chapters are so dreary. I need to get to the humor soon, get the absurdism flowing!

Chapter Three: Uncomfortable and comfortable.

'They forgot about us.'

'We're going to starve to death.'

'To escape, we just require a weasel.'

"Shush, someone is coming." Malarai Roole spoke for what felt like the first time in days. The orderlies never spoke to him unless he did so first, so after a while, he stopped bothering. He cleared his throat, and tried to straighten his hair for his guests - there seemed to be many of them. He could feel their thoughts press against his own like rolling waves - he was the shore that their loosed thoughts swelled up upon then receded from.

And like a shore, after a long time, the waves had eroded him somewhat.

"How do I look?" He asked of the voices, as he sat prim and proper on his bed, ideally the picture of a Silver Flame priest. However, their responses took the wind out of his sails.

'Your hair is oily like you haven't washed it in weeks.'

'You stink.'

'Remember that a smile is also a threat display.'

Malarai had no time to correct the issues that the voices made him aware of, as the door opened. A khoravar woman, dressed in a cassock with a lab coat over it, with a ludicrously large mane of hair bound up in a net. She was clearly old - her face was heavily wrinkled, her hair in the transition period to grey. But she was also a priestess of the silver flame - he could tell by the style of cassock she wore. It made Malarai forget himself for a moment, and avert his eyes from her.

"Mr. Roole," she said, detached. "I'm taking over for the doctor while she's away. My name is Berlith, and I need to conduct a physical exam to ensure the accuracy of your records. If you could return to your original appearance, please?"

Malarai scratched at his face, the mark on his hand made the itch he felt worse so he switched hands. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm me. I've always been me. I can't be anyone but me." He couldn't tell why it sounded like he wanted to convince himself.

'Liar liar, plants for hire.'

'Look I'm not even mad you're using my face, but own up to it man.'
'Wait, I'm supposed to be the voice on top.'

"Mr. Roole, I understand you were close to the people in your parish." Berlith, if that was her true name, approached him and tried to look empathetic. It was like she wanted to convey sympathy for someone's loss while she truly didn't care. "But you aren't a red-haired human with a farmer's tan - you haven't been outside in months."

Malarai turned his back wholesale to her to avoid that look. He couldn't bear to see it again. "I don't understand it either, but this is how I look!" He buried his face his hands and pushed against his forehead. It felt like his head wanted to split apart, so he wanted to force it to stay in place. When he finally felt secure enough to look up again, he caught sight of Berlith. She held up a pocket mirror, and he couldn't help but look at himself.

"Is that really you?"

Her question undid him. Malarai was no longer in a featureless room locked away in some castle. He was in the small one-room church of the Silver Flame in a border town. The Thranish peasant armies had spared him and his church, for he was of the same faith. But they were less kind to Dalin. Malarai, lost in the memory, held the ghost-hand of long-dead Dalin and listened to the farmer plead for Malarai to do a miracle - to heal, like the doctors of Jorasco could.

When the self-induced illusion broke, Malarai looked at his hands and they were eerily pale, they lacked fingernails, and he could see his own blood vessels twitch with his heartbeat. The coiling smoke of his mark was visible through his flesh on the other side of his limb.

"That's better, Mr. Roole." Berlith closed the pocket mirror with a definitive snap, then approached him without further fuss.

Malarai was in a sort of neutral state while his exam went on. It was like he was forced to look from his perspective, but lacked control over it. He didn't move from his position unless Berlith made him, and when she moved him he stayed in that new position.

'Okay good, I'm the one on top again.'

'It's okay to be ugly, you know. Ugly people achieve plenty of things in their lives!'

'Hey, now you've stolen my spot!'

"Mr. Roole, you're in perfect health, just a bit skinny. But that's typical for changelings of your age." Berlith positioned Malarai like a doll and had him lay down on his bed. "Your meals from now on will have a bit more fat in them to help you gain some weight." She stood and turned away from him, even as her thoughts crashed over his mind in waves of discontent and disgusted pity. "We will hopefully have some medication to help you differentiate yourself from your parishioner's identity soon."

"Dalin," Malarai croaked. It took all his strength to speak against the wave of Berlith's thoughts. Imagine the shore fighting the tide, and how hard that would be. "His name… was Dalin."

After a lengthy pause, Berlith nodded. "Dalin. I'll make sure that's documented." She walked out of his vision, and the door creaked to indicate she was to leave. Disgusted pity burned away with a touch of silver fire in the next wave of Berlith's thoughts - replaced with a burning obligation. He'd felt that once, the silver fire, the obligation. Why couldn't he feel it anymore, he wondered.

"The other aberrants… they all have families that will want to visit them." Berlith's tone was clearly forced. "Would you like… Dalin's family to visit you?"

Did Dalin have a family? He couldn't recall. Would they hate him? He couldn't recall.

'I'd love to see my family again if they survived.'

'It will do you some good to have closure.'

'I wonder what wax tastes like. … Pleh! Okay, not a good taste!'

"I would like that if they would want to see me."

"Alright." And moments later, the heavy door to his chamber closed and was locked.

After she'd met with Malarai, Berlith had to take a break. She and the orderlies went down to the great hall, adjacent to the unstaffed kitchens. Berlith made herself some tea in the Thranish style and made sure it was sweetened by a bit of prestidigitation.

Hearing Malarai recite Dalin's last words, pleas for healing that wouldn't come, and a dying curse on the Silver Flame priest who couldn't save him - these had brought back unpleasant memories.

She wasn't a healing mage. Berlith was a holy mage who studied the enemy, found their weaknesses, and documented additional weaknesses to help future warriors. Ideally, she would have spent her time in the archives to help battlefield commanders plan their strikes, but just as often she went with them. Part of being a priestess errant was that she went where she was needed.

More than once, she had gone on a mission with others of the Thranish peasant armies. More than once, she had held men and women, sometimes teens barely old enough to bear a sword's weight, as they died. As she sat with a cup of tea, surrounded by the orderlies as they discussed what they had thought of so far, she couldn't help wonder why she had been so desperate to forget their faces.

Malarai had reminded her.

"There's an open area over the entrance hall, where the trebuchet used to be mounted," one of the orderlies, Julili, brought up. She tapped her pencil against her head, perhaps to highlight how good of an idea she had come up with. "It's too high up for any of the patients to jump from and survive, so we can take them out there for supervised outside time!"

Coolander wagged his finger at the idea. "We can't discount the possibility that they will jump regardless, as a result of desperation. A requisition for mandatory fall-safe equipment must be placed with the artificers, first."

"Miss Ide and Mr. Mankarr also need wheelchairs," Februhaha added as they looked through a journal of the facility's equipment. "The doctor ordered the ones we had on hand to be distributed to injured veterans in the settlement. A publicity stunt that ensured they see us as someone who provides for the community - but also indicative of how she never saw the patients leaving their rooms."

"Requisitioning them from Wroat will take a long time," Adjustus lamented. He held his notepad unsteadily, and Berlith could understand why. His handwriting was poor, and he didn't want to be made fun of for it. "There are a lot of injured soldiers coming home - Jorasco medical equipment will be at a premium price for at least a year."

Berlith was distracted from her demons by the intelligent and substantive discussion that had taken shape between the warforged orderlies. It made her remember - the warforged had been given freedom because of their natural intelligence and capacity for emotion; they were alive, living constructs.

"Tell me," she asked them at length, "what do you make of the patients? Do they seem a threat to you, a burden?"

Her question came in the midst of a discussion about the possibility of nets around the keep to prevent suicides. So naturally, the orderlies were a bit bewildered.

One of the quieter orderlies, Septrippo, responded. Her face was geared for slightly more expression than a normal warforged's, but her expressions didn't follow organic trends. "They are civilians, and they are hurt. Article forty-four of the code of Galifar and section three of the Healers Guild code of conduct require us to prioritize the well-being of non-combatants. Whether they are a threat or not, our obligation is to their welfare."

"Mr. Mankarr isn't a threat to us," Julili added. "We don't have blood, so his power can't affect us. Miss Ide, on the other hand…."

"Having an artificer on-staff would go a long way to helping us feel more secure in working with Miss Ide," Februhaha added when Julili trailed off. "Her rusting powers could easily be repaired then."

"I'll check our budget, perhaps we can arrange to have an artificer here, or in the settlement." Berlith was able to distance herself from unpleasant memories with the conversation, and it put her in a much better mood. "What about the other five patients? None of them concern you?"

"I'm always afraid Nishi is going to hurt himself when he lands," Februhaha admitted with a downturned head. "He's young and springy, but his power doesn't strengthen his shock absorption abilities."

"Plus, more than once he has seized while in the air, or shortly after landing," Coolander pointed out. He wagged his finger again. "Those fall-safe items will be invaluable to him twice-over."

Berlith finished her tea and stood up. "Alright, we've chattered enough. I like these ideas," she emphasized and pointed around to the orderlies. "Write them down, and I'll forward the best ones to the Baron so he can make the requisitions." Her teacup was cleaned off with a touch of another magic ring, for small household functions, then returned to her handbag. "We have more patients to see, however."

8/5/997

"Mr. Mankarr? The potion drip is set up, we're ready to move your arms."

Mankarr looked at the inverted glass bottle that hung from a repurposed coat rack, from which a thin tube fed into his arm. While two orderlies, Merch and Adjustus, unlocked the leather manacles that held his arms above his head, he wondered what the sparkly purple potion in the tube would taste like.

However, the blinding pain of his stiff shoulders and upper back coming into use made him forget. He hadn't been able to move his arms for a long time, and suddenly having two strong warforged do so for him wrung a cacophonous scream out of him. But once his hands were at his waist again, he could feel the potion and his own regeneration go to work. He would describe it like dozens of ants crawling on the wrong side of his skin.

"Are you okay, Mr. Mankarr?" Poor Merch seemed that orderly was always made to ask the stupid questions.

"A bit of drink, a bit of food, and fifteen minutes on my own and I will be right as rain," the gnome told the metal man with a grin. His grin dimmed somewhat when Adjustus put his hands underneath Mankarr, and Merch grabbed the coat rack. "What's going on?"

"Interim viceroy Berlith has authorized your quarters to be moved," Adjustus said with clear glee. "We are going to place you with the other patients, while your new room is made ready for you."

He hadn't been seen the outside of the room he'd been kept in and was disappointed to find it mostly barren rock. There weren't even guard checkpoints. Borderline insulting, it was. Once upon a time, he'd been considered the most dangerous of all the test subjects - they had given him a code name and were hoping to expand his mark again for a third power. There was also the heaps of straight up torture, but the ones responsible for that had died.

Mankarr liked to think he was plenty spiteful and grudge-holding, but after he'd watched Aejar's daddy come stomping through their original prison and dropping Shadows like they were annoyances, he felt the whole affair settled.

But at least the new viceroy had made them let him wear pants. His own pants, even - from when the Shadows kidnapped him and stole most of his effects. Even though she didn't have the sense to keep them under sentry watch, he liked her for that.

He was carried along without incident other than some sharp spikes of pain from his mark - but the potion drip kept it at bay. And soon enough the orderlies opened a door to the outside. A covered walkway to the keep's donjon. Mankarr looked out through the empty window spaces at the Brelish countryside and saw Sharn far in the distance. He felt the wind on his face and found he had forgotten how warm Breland could be in spring.

The experience ended quickly, as they crossed into the donjon, and a whole suite of new sights to take in was presented to him. The square tower was ringed at several levels with walkways and stairs to connect them, up to the top from which watchers would see invading armies in days of old. Now it had become a sort of miniature library, with college-style study desks pressed to the walls and in rows on the bottom. Comfortable seating had been added, such as lounge sofas, where Mankarr saw the withered old dwarf woman - Ide.

Someone had styled her hair into dwarvish braids - that was good of them. And they'd put her feet up, so they wouldn't swell. She saw Mankarr, waved to him and spoke: "Hello dyadya!"

Mankarr sighed, then ground his teeth as Adjustus set him down into another lounge sofa. He hissed in pain as his marked leg was lifted to have pillows laid down underneath it. But once it was done, he could tell he was much more comfortable than he would be without the padding. "Thank you, my fine metal men," he told the orderlies with false cheer. "Dare I hope we are allowed to read the books?"

Merch nodded. "The interim viceroy has said you may even request books to take back to your rooms, and that they are going to restore the old printing press so they can make multiple copies of popular books." The excitable orderly clapped their hands and held them to their face afterward - in mimicry of a gesture Mankarr had once shown them sarcastically. "Isn't that exciting?"

"It is," the gnome agreed while Adjustus tossed a plush throw pillow over his lower half. Even with pants, hospital gowns weren't meant to retain warmth so Mankarr was appreciative. "I find that, having never met her I like her more than half my family." Something was off about what he'd said - the words felt wrong in his mouth so he reflected a moment. "Wait, have I met her? Was she that bizarre khoravar woman with the enormous hair?"

"Yes!" Merch did the excited clapping thing again. "Oh, and you probably want a book to read, yeah?" The orderly tapped their head and considered. "Let's start with the latest copy of the Chronicle, they have a catalog with new books being published this year, we could pre-order some for you."

Merch and Adjustus left for the bookshelves, and after a few minutes examination, they were forced to go up to another level in pursuit of the news journal.

And with them gone, Mankarr reclined in the sofa, and enjoyed a fresh view for the first time in… he realized he would not know the exact time until he saw the date in the news journal. It had clearly been a long time, given how long his hair had grown. Ide was occupied with a hallucination - she acted like there was dog near her. But she spoke of oil, and polishing - perhaps the old artificer spoke to the memory of her homunculus?

"I don't suppose you know if they made it?" He asked her, for there was no one else to ask. He didn't want to sound desperate - but she had been the only other test subject he'd seen, he hoped she had seen or failed to see, the others.

"No, I made it," Ide said with a good-natured smile. "Dyadya, I'm a smith like you now!"

Mankarr sighed again. Then he noticed that there was a shadow over his sofa. When he looked up, there was a figure that blocked his light. It made him frown, for he recognized the shape. "Oh… I'd hoped you got away."

A burly man stepped more clearly into Mankarr's view. Tanned skin, heavily haired arms, mutton chops and long hair blonde like gold - and a mark of sickly green that was only visible a bit on his foot. Beastial features on a roughly human shape - like a cross between a man and a hobgoblin; a shifter. He had an improvised blade in one hand and loomed over the gnome.

"Oh, the viceroy let you wear trousers?" Mankarr arched an eyebrow. "That must be nice."

"It is," the shifter, Weir, said. "Pants, trousers, and a shirt too. I forgot what it was like to walk around without a draft." There was plenty of room on the sofa, given how small Mankarr was, so there was no obstacle when the shifter sat down on it too. "Thora got away."

Mankarr smiled a little and tried not to look smug. "She's going to never let you forget that when you get out too." Up close, he could see that the shifter looked good for their captivity. Clearly, the gnome's mandated bed-rest was not the norm. "How did she slip by, and not you?"

"I came back for Nishi." Weir shrugged and threw his arm over the back of the sofa where Mankarr rested. "I knew if I came back for you and got caught, you'd get mad. So I tried to bust Nishi out instead."

"You know me so well." Mankarr grinned and for once didn't use it to hide anything. He used the implicit invitation Weir had given him to scoot his torso, bad leg, and pillow supports, to better fit against the shifter's side. "How close did you come to getting him out?"

"Iunno, like a little under a minute left on his door, and I'd have gotten through." Weir's arm came down off the back of the sofa to squish the gnome against him for a moment. "And after I got the kid home, I would have come back for the rest of y'all."

"I would honestly wish you luck getting Ide or Vaedo home." Mankarr used his head to indicate the poor old woman. "They'd probably get you caught at least once."

"Dyadya, stop hugging the bears, you'll give the neighbors weird notions," Ide chided and shook her finger at the duo on the other sofa.

"See?" Mankarr looked up at Weir and leaned into him. "Your humble origins don't prepare you for this sort of thing - but you're so heroic you'd get out. Maybe with a scar or a missing leg. But still."

Weir arched a bushy brow and held up the curved blade. "Being a barber teaches you to be good with blades, you know - so I could fight my way out. Speaking of which, want me to trim you up?"

"That depends, how bad does the 'bedraggled prisoner' vibe look on me?" Mankarr struck his most 'Imma rebel' pose, hard to do when he was sitting, but he made due.

"Long hair looks good on you, actually." Weir's response was unexpected. "But I'm biased." He took a section of his own long hair and ran it through his fingers. "Clean it up, braid it, and you'd look pretty… well, pretty." He tapped the blade to Mankarr's cheek. "But the beard definitely needs trimming."

Mankarr felt his beard and noted how heavily knotted it was. Ugh. He gave the green light for the trim and leaned his head back. "Where did you even get a blade?"

Weir shifted so that he could use what limited magic a barber needed in conjunction with the blade to begin the trim. "I made it. The orderlies said it didn't pose a threat to them, so they don't care that I have it since my mark doesn't put me at risk of suicide." For some odd reason, the shifter always used water, even though there was no shaving cream for the water to help. Perhaps it was a habit. "The viceroy let me keep it when she found it." He smirked. "Because she doesn't want me desperately scrabbling for weapons."

"You're banking on her not having a dragonmark," Mankarr singsonged. "She'll skull-tingle any time you try to take her out."

"Medani dragonmarked people are rare - they're one of the smallest Houses. It's a safe wager that she's unmarked." For a while after that, the only sound was the scrape of a blade through hair and across skin. Weir's hands were still steady despite how ill at ease he clearly was.

Mankarr could tell by the way Weir would steal a glance at the gnome's bad leg. He could tell by the way he froze any time Mankarr took a deep breath. He could tell by the way Weir would gingerly touch the potion drip tube as if it were delicate glass.

"I don't like her, but I don't dislike her either. She let them help you, got you to stop screaming all the time." Weir nicked Mankarr accidentally, but by the time he cleaned off the blood the wound had healed perfectly. "Sorry."

"It's fine. Make me look good, and I'll forgive you." The gnome winked.

Weir found it less amusing, but he continued to cut at the green hair professionally. By the time the orderlies came back, a considerable amount of Mankarr's bear had found itself shorn off and deposited in a wastebasket. They came back to the scene of the shifter barber using minor acts of prestidigitation to tend to the bard's hair.

Mankarr had forgotten he'd wanted to read the Chronicle. So it was pleasant to have a distraction while Weir worked his wonders, in the form of a whetstone of the mind. "Karrnath advocates lasting peace, Thrane is tyrannically crushing their populace, Aundair hungers for war in every way except with action, and Cyre appears to have dropped off the face of the world." After a few minutes to skim, Mankarr turned to look over his shoulder at Weir. "Are we sure we're still on Eberron?"

"Good to know, even if you consider this an alternate universe, Breland is still Breland." Weir finished the overlapping braid he had decided on for Mankarr's hair, then rejoined him for another cuddle. "Flip to the gossip section, I want to see if Prince Jurian finally got stabbed or not."

Prince Jurian: wandering dandy, consumate layabout, moocher extradorinaire, a spy on his extended family, and really kind of a jerk has actually been stabbed eleven times. It's barely newsworthy anymore.