Dunshire was even closer than the party had thought, and they were able to get all the guards quickly checked in to the local volunteer clinic. Malakos tried to pay for the guards’ treatment, but the staff there refused it–saying the facilities were a charity. 

“Okay,” Bardy said, as they exited. “Let's get some supplies or whatever, and get back to Whispenshire.”

“We killed an innocent man,” Malakos muttered to himself.

“I'm going to get a haircut,” Ruby said.

“How is this going to affect the people in his duchy?”

“Then we'll meet back at that inn and get a bite to eat before we--” Deruque started, before Malakos's muttering cut in.

“We were only supposed to distract him, but we outright killed him.”

“Mal? You okay, buddy?” Ruby asked, gently tipping his head up to look at her. “Do you want to go do some meditation?”

“I am a cleric of the Ministry of Life, and I killed an innocent man!”

“Yeah, you need to go do some meditation. Come on, I think I saw a sanctuary a little ways back...”

The sanctuary in Dunshire was much bigger and more ornate than the one in Whispenshire, complete with archways and small but immaculate gardens. 

“Which Ascended does this sanctuary honor?” Malakos asked, looking around for some symbolism or inscription. “They may not have ties with the Ministry of Life, so maybe I should–”

“We are an open sanctuary,” a priest appeared behind them, holding a basket of laundry. “Please, feel welcome to enter and make your correspondence freely. We honor all those who have Ascended into the beyond.” 

“Oh…” Malakos said, poorly feigning happiness. “...Perfect...” 

The priest offered to show the tiefling to the correspondence alcoves, so the rest of the party waved him farewell and headed back to the central market street.

“Please take as long as you like, wayfarer,” the priest smiled in a way that was kind and warm, and made Malakos’s stomach feel clammy. 

Don't smile at me like that. I'm a murderer. 

“Thank you,” he mumbled, and the priest returned to his work in the yard. 

Malakos would have exited the sanctuary then, but he was stopped at the door by a different priest–one who looked like the most devout pupil in the Ministry of Gains, and said the priest from earlier had asked him to keep an eye on the distressed-looking tiefling until his party could come pick him up again. 

Left with no other recourse, he trudged back to the alcoves and took a seat. 

Deep breath in, deep breath out. No point in delaying the inevitable any longer–he would need to contact the Ascended eventually to give his report. Maybe punctuality would spare him a little bit of the comeuppance he was about to receive. 

Or expected he would receive? To be honest, his experience communicating with the Ascended was limited. Intentionally so. 

The Ascended were heroes who had had such impact upon the world that their followers could not let them truly leave. If enough people on the material plane regularly reached for the heroes beyond death–either by sharing their stories and teachings, celebrating their lives on special days, offering tribute, or establishing and maintaining a line of correspondence with them–these heroes would ascend from the afterlife to a plane that paralleled the material plane, but on a much more luxurious scale. There, they could perfect the skills that granted them ascension, and use them to aid those on the material plane who maintained the connection between realms. 

There were numerous Ascended–some said innumerable. They often overlapped each other, consulted with each other, even competed or outright warred with each other. Ascended who were friendly and had similar gifts and focuses were grouped into Schools, or Ministries.

Not all of the Ascended had…altruistic impact. Those who had not done so still managed to be among the most popular–and therefore most powerful–Ascended, as they offered power to their followers. 

The power they offered had fewer moral limits than that which was offered by most–but bore a greater price. Followers of these–more recently referred to as the Descended Ones–purchased power using their lives, their souls, or their entire bloodlines. 

Well, that last one wasn't entirely true. Nobody could promise something that didn't belong to them. So while the blood of the child might be sold by the parents who gave it, the soul remained unclaimed. Thus was born the tiefling–human souls and minds touched by demon interference. Horns, tails, and sometimes diminutive or misshapen wings sprung from their bodies of various alien colors, as though to stake a claim for whichever of the nine demonic Archdukes originally brokered the bloodline's pact. 

The Archdukes were able to target tieflings of their bloodline easier than other people, and often chose them for tasks on the material plane. 

Resisting was…very difficult.

Most tieflings could go their whole lives without being targeted by the Archdukes. Many of those few who were, however, embraced the role–driven by mistreatment from others to seek the closest thing they could find to acceptance. Some few others found that connection to other Ascended Ones weakened the Archdukes' hold upon them, and sought sanctuary in a kinder fold.

Malakos rubbed his wrist. His situation was a little more complicated than that, unfortunately. He had been ineligible to claim any particular Ascended One, and had to instead choose the position of a Petitioner: one who belonged to a particular School, but had no claim to any particular Ascended. He could petition them by name, but would be answered at a lower priority than those followers who claimed them. Otherwise, his correspondences were posted openly, and would be addressed by whichever Ascended answered first.

Because he lacked the kind of rapport most clerics developed with their Ascended Ones, Malakos generally aimed just to not be a nuisance. Reports up until now had been short and to the point. ‘I healed such and such in this town.’ ‘So and so is suffering beyond my ability to serve. Please send someone more skilled than me.’ Up until he’d left the sanctuary a few years ago, he hadn’t even started making his own direct reports–he’d just submitted his notes to the next priest up the ranks. It was only after he ventured out as a traveling cleric that he’d had to start making the reports himself. 

He closed his eyes and reached out with his mind. It felt a little like fishing. His soul extended out in a thin thread, floating like spider's silk into the ether, waiting for a response. 

His focus was broken however, as what he had believed to be the smell of some kind of sanctuary incense began to overpower him. He coughed and opened his eyes. Perfumed smoke surrounded him, blocking his vision of anything but…some shadowy figure moving toward him. The tiefling squinted against the cloud, which was starting to sting his eyes. Which Ascended was this? His mind raced to consider the options, when the shadowy figure spoke.

"EEUGHK," it sounded. 

"Wait…" Malakos said. "Prunella?!" 

The stout waitress from the Thistleton tavern stepped forward, puffing another cloud of perfumed smoke from a large cigar. She took a look at the cleric, sprawled on the floor after falling out of his seat, and turned to step into a different correspondence alcove. 

"Oh thank heavens," Malakos muttered, clutching his chest. For a moment, he'd thought she was…

Then, he felt the thread to his soul being tugged lightly. He was receiving an answer. 

Malakos scrambled back into his seat and closed his eyes again. When he opened them, he saw a figure before him, wearing a mask that covered their three eyes. 

A Retainer. Malakos was put slightly more at ease, reporting his moral failure to one of the Ascended's servants rather than an Ascended One. 

"Hello, Malakos," the Retainer said. His voice was pleasant, Celestial accent ringing musically like bells through the vellum ‘n’ and ‘m’ sounds of Common–whereas Malakos's Infernal accent made the same metallic noises sound like swordfighting. "You're a little bit early, aren't you? It hasn't even been two weeks since your last check-in."

"I–" Malakos stammered. "I have–" he glanced at the Retainer, and saw a scroll in his hand.

He had a sudden idea.

"I actually had a question. As a Retainer for the School of Life, have you received any records today from a Duke Phillip of Lettinsburg?" 

"Hm…" said the Retainer, opening his scroll. "Let me check…"

*********

“Well,” Bardy said as they left the sanctuary grounds, “why don't we ask around a bit? Get a little more perspective before we decide whether or not we did a bad thing. Like you said, Deruque—his guards are hardly an unbiased perspective in terms of whether or not the source of their income should be killed.”

“That does make sense,” Ruby said.

“It's decided, then. I'm gonna check out some shops, Deruque can ask the patrons of the local inn, and you can ask around at the barbershop while you get your hair restyled. We'll meet up here and pick up Malakos from cleric daycare, and then we'll all figure out what to do from there.”

The party split up and ran their errands. The townspeople were all fairly well-acquainted with Duke Phillip, at least by reputation, due to the proximity of his duchy.

“Oh yeah, my sister lives there,” one centaur blacksmith told Bardy. “Likes the place well enough, but Duke Phillip is...” he whinnied a small, bewildered chuckle. “...he's something else.”

“We hear a lot about him,” Ruby's barber was saying as she started trimming. “He seems like a real character. Pretty annoying, by the sounds of him. Harassing anyone that looks remotely female, whining about every inconvenience... the economy's decent, though. My neighbor imports flour from there, which is like, why do you need flour from Lettinsburg? Dunshire flour's not good enough for you?”

Deruque's interviewees were more colorful in their language and more bleak in their opinion of the Duke, and shall not be quoted here.

*****

The muscular priest greeted them at the sanctuary door and called Malakos over. The tiefling was looking far better than they'd left him, worry lines all but faded from his face.

“Someone looks like he had a good meditation,” Ruby observed.

“Malakos, we have great news,” Deruque said. “Duke Phillip definitely deserved to die. Nobody liked him, and he was a noble anyway, so--”

“Well, he was annoying by all accounts,” Bardy said. “Some would say more than just annoying, but opinions vary.”

“Point is,” Deruque said, “You can stop crying about having made the wrong choice. I was right—murder is always the right choice when nobles and despots are involved.”

Malakos opened his mouth to point out that they were following Lady Dimir, a noble and a princess, but changed his mind. Instead, he said, “Actually, I have even better news—Duke Phillip isn't dead! We didn't kill him! We did kill that one guard, so we aren't completely innocent, but at least someone worse isn't going to come in and take over his duchy! Given some time, maybe we can resurrect the guard. And  if we hurry back to Whispenshire, I can sneak into the clinic and heal the Duke so--”

“Are you INSANE?!” Deruque shouted. “We'll go back to Whispenshire, alright, but I'm gonna be finishing what we started!”

Ranger and Cleric argued for the entire trek back to the Red Cloak base, until Ruby broke in.

“Guys, shut up! Why don't we just let Lady Dimir decide what should be done? He's her fiancé, after all.”

“Ex-fiancé,” Bardy corrected.

Malakos made a sound like someone getting punched in the stomach. “Bannit” he whispered, before looking at the others. “I'd forgotten...Lady Dimir is going to be furious that we tried to kill an innocent...uh...a non-murderous man!”

“Oh please—” Deruque rolled his eyes. “She was doomed to be married to him. She's only going to be furious that we didn't succeed.”

As it turned out, both were wrong.

“Well...” the Red Cloak leader chuckled. “I did ask you to distract him. And he is thoroughly distracted. Next time, though, let's try something a little less lethal, understood?”

“Yes, of course,” Malakos answered.

“No promises,” Deruque countered.

“As for your suggestions,” she continued, looking from dragonborn to tiefling, “you will do neither—we will allow Duke Phillip to keep occupied healing on his own, while you four...five,” she corrected, upon seeing Patch, “will fulfill three tasks in some surrounding towns. Before our revolution can have any hope of success, we need soldiers, funds, and expertise. Task one will take you to Shettleport, where a legendary hero is rumored to live in secluded retirement. You are to find him, persuade him to our cause, and bring him back here. His expertise will help us train our soldiers to become a formidable force. After you have completed this task, it is our hope that his reputation will attract more recruits. Your second task will work toward this end as well, taking you to Goldrak to recruit more forces from the tough and hardy miners there. Your third task will take you to Sylithese (sp?), to procure funding. This one will be tricky, as you will be approaching the biggest crime syndicate in the country. Having a legendary hero and greater forces will make striking a deal possible, but you will still have to be shrewd. Be careful what you promise them in exchange for their gold.”

“Understood,” Malakos said, and Dimir dismissed them to rest.