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      "author": "steemitboard",
      "body": "Congratulations @shatteredempire! You received a personal award!\n\n<table><tr><td>https://steemitimages.com/70x70/http://steemitboard.com/@shatteredempire/birthday2.png</td><td>Happy Birthday! - You are on the Steem blockchain for 2 years!</td></tr></table>\n\n<sub>_You can view [your badges on your Steem Board](https://steemitboard.com/@shatteredempire) and compare to others on the [Steem Ranking](https://steemitboard.com/ranking/index.php?name=shatteredempire)_</sub>\n\n\n###### [Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness](https://v2.steemconnect.com/sign/account-witness-vote?witness=steemitboard&approve=1) to get one more award and increased upvotes!",
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      "body": "With no goal in mind, Thaland mindlessly followed the ebb and flow of the crowd as it wended its way along the waterfront.  However, because he had no interest in the taverns or other waterfront dives and no business to conduct in the warehouses, Thaland soon found his feet retracing his accustomed path to the plaza that surrounded the public well near his former (and, he supposed, current) apartment.  Did a Justicar ‘live’ anywhere?  He apparently had no further need for rest, food or drink, yet he was not yet ready to completely sever himself from worldly desires, pleasures or comforts.  He searched his mind and feelings and concluded that though he’d become a Justicar (though he did not yet fully understand what that was), he was not an ascetic.  A Justicar should still be able to enjoy the pleasures of the life they had enjoyed before, shouldn’t they?  The training and education program for this duty had been quite…truncated.  Thaland supposed he would learn the rules as he went.\n\nPrevious to his conversion to the rank of Justicar, Thaland, a Captain of the Guard, Docks Division, had often concluded his overnight duties by relaxing on one of the benches or sections of waist-high wall that encircled the well and watching the glory of Sol’s Chariot ascending the eastern horizon.  Today, though he was vastly changed, he indulged in his old ritual of watching light and life return to the sky and city.  As the sky began to gray and shade to pink over the eastern rooftops, the good wives or eldest daughters of the local households began to appear in the plaza as they began their day by fetching water for their respective households.\n\nGoodwife Macon, his landlady, emerged from the doorway of his building.  With her was Diesca, her eldest daughter.  Thaland had occasionally caught Diesca gazing at him or loitering over her duties when they brought her into his proximity.  At nineteen, Diesca was practically an old maid, and Goody Macon had occasionally made none-too-subtle hints that Thaland would make an excellent father for the children Diesca wanted.  Thaland had only the previous day wished he could know Diesca’s true, inner-most thoughts on the matter.  Now, as he gazed upon her admittedly desirable form, he found he could.\n\nDiesca’s surface thoughts were occupied with the upcoming duties of her day.  The deeper thoughts were divided between the confusing desires the Watch Captain aroused in her mind and body and concern that he wasn’t around this morning.  He’d been supposed to come back before dawn, yet his room was empty and she didn’t see him in the plaza.  In addition, the street was rife with rumors that the Guild had used Grandfather Bones to dispose of a troublesome Watch Captain.  Then there were the rumors that the ancient vampire had gone rogue, killing several Guild enforcers who’d been there to witness the captain’s demise.\n\nDiesca’s worry was too much for Thaland’s still-human emotions.  Before he was compelled to show himself to, and comfort her, he tore his attention from the young woman to ‘peruse’ the thoughts of the others gathering around the well.  A middle-aged matron was concerned about her two eldest sons who’d begun running with the Tragelli Toughs, a local gang that ran a ‘protection’ racket extorting money from local merchants and families.  Another was full of thoughts about how the local matchmaker had successfully paired her sons with two local merchant’s daughters.  The dowrys would set the new couples in housekeeping and the prospective fathers-in-law were pleased with the match as well. \n\nThis, Thaland thought, was what he’d fought to protect; Ordinary, decent folk who didn’t have to concern themselves with anything beyond going about the common business of their lives.  These were the people he’d fought and, in a way, died to protect against the corrupt, lawless predators who inhabited the underbelly of civilization.  He accepted that he was beyond the influence of the living, but was the occasional, simple joy of the mortal life beyond him as well?\nHe consciously drew a deep breath, the first inhalation since…had he been breathing since he’d experimented in the warehouse basement?  He found he was not sure.  The well-remembered expansion of the chest and abdomen occurred reluctantly, but it did occur.  The familiar tang of the salt air carried along with it the mixed sweet, sharp and pungent odors of civilization. After a few deeply savored breaths, his mind felt immeasurably better about his future.  Other than death holding no threat over him, his personality hadn’t changed much.\n\n A dirty, bruised, harried-looking girl rushed into the crowd surrounding the well, drawing Thaland’s attention.  The girl, named Isgil, was pre-occupied with thoughts and cares no pre-teen should have.  Her mother had recently died ‘falling down the stairs’ after a terrible fight with her uncle, who had since moved in with her family.  Both her father and uncle were frequently drunk and subject to terrible rages.  Her greatest troubles, however, were that her father and uncle had begun paying ‘special’ attention to her in ways she didn’t like.  They would come to her pallet at night and...  Thaland closed off Isgil’s mind quickly, embarrassed and mortified at what the girl’s thoughts implied.\n\nThaland’s formerly idle thoughts crystallized into a determination to do something to help Isgil.  A quick perusal of the girl’s memories revealed where she lived and that she was the oldest of the five children her mother had borne that still lived.  It was a sad fact that many babies born into this life did not live through their first winter, even in this relatively warm climate.  Fewer still lived through the seemingly endless list of mundane diseases and magical plagues still lingering about two millennia after the Mage Wars.\n\nThaland stood suddenly, startling several pigeons that had gathered about, but curiously, no people seemed to notice his abrupt movement other than to watch the pigeons.   This, he presumed, was part of what legends called ‘The Shield of Justice’.  Lore said that the Justicars moved unseen and untouched through the masses.  It appeared to Thaland that this was not due to great skill or stealth, but because the Justicars had some sort of ‘Don’t See Me/Don’t Touch Me’ aura that warded off all mortals.  That worked to his advantage for now.  However, he knew he would soon need to figure out how to get the attention of those he wanted to communicate with.  The recent episode with Grandfather Bones rose to mind.  A repeat performance with Isgil’s male relatives would probably be enough to stop their ‘special time’ with the girl.  Then again, Thaland’s hand clenched in a fist around his sword hilt, there were other methods that held certain appeal.\n\nHe began striding purposefully toward the seedy, run-down district where Isgil’s family’s too-small apartment resided.  Various potential scenes, ranging from pathetic to positively blood-thirsty, unfolded in Thaland’s imagination as he walked with ever-increasing speed toward Isgil’s address.  He turned from the broad, well-maintained thoroughfare into a lane too narrow for anything wider than a one-horse cart to pass without trouble.   That didn’t stop the rag merchants, sausage vendors and other enterprising souls from hawking their wares or services from the rough cobblestones as they navigated barrows, hand-carts and even a wagon or two, up and down the milling stream of dirty humanity.\n\nWashing hung from lines run between the tenements that lurked on either side of the lane, contributing to the illusion that the street was infested with giant spiders whose webs displayed the gutted remains of their previous victims.  The way the refuse and chamber pot spillings made the lane smell added to the dungeonesque illusion.\n\n  Many of the buildings’ bottom floors were given over to shops offering wares ranging from mundane dry goods and the local bakery to fortune-tellers, a quarter of whom might have a fragment of true Talent. There were more than the usual sprinkling of pawn-brokers and second-hand shops.  Desperate people draw their own brand of vultures, Thaland knew.  He also knew that a large number of the managers of these shops had connections with the Guild and their stock had recently graced the homes or shops of the finer classes of Kingston or another coastal city.  A used doublet is a used doublet, who can say whether the former wearer parted willingly with it or not?  The same was often the case for lamps, half-burned candles or anything else, for that matter.  No one was going to spend the coin for a Trace spell to recover something worth less than the spell unless there was a great sentiment involved, and the thieves, as well as their masters, knew it.\n\nIn the midst of these thoughts, a deep segment of Thaland’s attention was grabbed by a seemingly innocent scene two buildings away and behind him that would have escaped his notice only yesterday.  (Of course, yesterday, he would have been looking for someone to ambush him because of his uniform.) Only a grain would have fallen in a Time Glass in the time it took Thaland to assess the situation and grind his teeth in rage.  \n\nThaland couldn’t begin to count the number of bereaved families, siblings or parents that had come to him, fully expecting him or his subordinates to find a missing child.  The majority of the time, it was an unusually attractive, nubile girl or almost beautiful boy.  He had often agonized in the countless Turns of the Glass he’d spent in fruitless searches over why the flesh peddlers couldn’t be satisfied with the uncounted cast-off children and leave the few wanted and loved children at home with their families.\n\nIsgil’s father and uncle would have to wait.  Thaland could clearly read the fear and panic in the faces and thoughts of the three girls, and the predatory lust in the teenage boys and older men, as the children were skillfully herded away from the relative safety of their rented apartments.  \n\nEven had he seen the incident yesterday, there was no way he could have forced his way through the people and covered the intervening distance before the captors had gotten their prey hidden away and despoiled their virtue, and possibly the rest of their lives.  Even now, knowing that he could run full-tilt through the crowds, he despaired because the ruffians were pushing their captives around the corner of the further building into the alley.  A terrible sense of urgency seized the former watch captain. He needed to be there, in the alley, to protect the three girls.\n\nThaland wasn’t sure exactly how he’d done it, but he was aware of reaching across the distance to where he wanted to be.  Just as he’d willed himself back to the street level from Grandfather Bones’ subterranean domain, the Justicar pulled and stepped through the people and buildings as though they were no more substantial than the harbor fog.\nWhen the world re-solidified, Thaland’s first impression was that the alley was filthy.  The stones were carpeted with a thick layer of decomposing refuse and populated with vermin ranging from lice and roaches to rats he couldn’t see yet could somehow sense to …the ruffian enforcers busily hustling their three young, barely pubescent, prisoners along towards the as-yet unnoticed Justicar.\n\nThe first two enforcers, scouting for any interference, Thaland presumed, both ignored and avoided the cloak-shrouded figure, just as everyone else Thaland had encountered since his ‘death’.  Suddenly, Thaland was afraid that the rest of the oncoming crowd would pass by unseeing and uncaring.  He drew his sword with his right hand to block off the alley to his right and readied his left to catch the next ruffian that came within his reach.\n\nThaland had never been a large man.  In fact he’d been slightly shorter than average and slightly built.  He’d relied on the force of his personality, willpower, and the threat of the full weight of the Kingston Watch, to convince others to do his bidding.  Now, when he grasped the next passing enforcer, he was greatly shocked to see the man’s neck disappear within his hand’s grasp.\n\nThe enforcer’s visage melted from shocked annoyance to mild alarm when he couldn’t budge Thaland’s iron grasp.  Suddenly, the ruffian seemed to shrink in size and Thaland realized that he’d physically grown dramatically in the blink of an eye.  \n\nThe legends of Justicars had portrayed Justicars as ranging from average height and build (for a human man) to the height and girth of giants.  Thaland had never given the legends credence because of that wild variation.  Now he understood, a Justicar could become as large as they needed to physically dominate the situation.\n\nThaland lifted the ruffian to stare him in the eye.  The enforcer’s legs windmilled uselessly in the air above the refuse-strewn cobbles and his eyes bulged in raw terror.  Thaland jerked the man close to his face and snarled in a voice he scarcely recognized as his own, “The Scales find you…guilty.”  He hurled the ruffian casually, almost contemptuously, at the still-oncoming knot of enforcers that were herding their terrified prisoners.\n\nThe hapless enforcer’s limbs scrabbled wildly, vainly seeking purchase in the passing air until he crashed into three of the other hoodlums.  Yells and curses of pain and outrage erupted as the four enforcers tumbled like tenpins. \nThree of the four remaining ruffians each grabbed one of girls aborting any attempt to escape and the fourth produced an ugly, but efficient-looking crossbow from beneath his cloak.  “Begone you!  Yer interferin’ wi’ Guild business!” the ruffian yelled with menace laced with confusion and fear.\n\nThaland took a single, menace-laden stride forward and pointed his sword.  “The scales of Justice hold you in their pans,” he pronounced in a deep, doom-laden voice.  “You have this one chance to escape the judgment I bring.”  He paused for a moment as three of the enforcers scrambled to their feet.  The ruffian Thaland had thrown lay motionless, his neck cocked at an impossible angle.\n\n“Oy, fellow,” came a voice from behind Thaland.  “You ‘as really stepped in it.  We’s wi’ th’ Guild, see?  As youse ‘as interfered wi’ our bus’ness, yer a dead man.”\n\nThree crossbows ‘clacked’ as their deadly bolts were released.  Only Thaland wasn’t there anymore when the missiles whirred through the air.  Two bolts clacked against the walls at opposite ends of the alley.  A ruffian screamed in pain and fell, announcing where the third bolt was now located.\n\n“My Turn,” Thaland announced ominously as he coalesced into existence from behind the crossbow wielder nearest the prisoners.  The black flamberge blade swung in a deadly arc, decapitating the crossbowman and one of the ruffians holding a girl before chopping heavily through the chest of a guildsman who’d just regained his feet.\nThe first two fell bonelessly, blood spurting from severed arteries.  The third fell against one of his companions, pink froth burbling from his mouth and side. \n\nThe remaining six ruffians stood motionless, mouths agape, their minds unable to cope with this sudden and unexpected turn of events.   The now-free girl stared at the severed head of her erstwhile captor that lay at her feet, covered her eyes with her hands, and began screaming in a high, shrill tone that would have put a banshee to shame. \n“Flee,” Thaland commanded.  “Flee now or die by my hand.”\n\n“Wizard!” screamed one of the crossbowmen as he produced a rod made from what appeared to be an intricately carved length of blackened bone.  “Die!”  A black glyph surrounded by purple flame appeared in the air between the crossbowman and Thaland, then smashed into the former watchman with physical force.\n\nThaland was knocked back a step and trembled slightly for an instant as the glyph’s power sought to snuff a life-force that was no longer mortal.  He pointed his black-bladed sword at the disbelieving guildsmen as he stated in a flat, sepuchural tone, “You cannot kill me, for I no longer live.  I am eternal, I am the vengeance of White against the servants of Blood!”  A surge of other-worldly power flowed into Thaland as he watched the non-descript tunic sleeve on his pointing arm transform into glittering plate armor as he proclaimed loudly, “I am Justicar!”  At the same instant, blue-white tendrils of power surged on the sword blade before blasting into the rod-weilding guildsman, transforming him, and everything on him, into a cloud of pale gray ash.\n\nThe two of the remaining guildsmen holding the girls shoved their captives at the glittering Justicar and took to their heels, followed an instant later by their three remaining companions.\n\n Thaland reversed his transformation, returning to the nondescript form he’d worn since leaving Grandfather Bones’ tunnels.  He crouched, took the screaming girl’s face in his hands, and gently turned her so that she looked into his eyes.  “It is a terrible thing that has happened to you my dear Rika.  Let me help you by softening the edges.”  He gently stroked her on the forehead, carefully blurring the memories of her ordeal.  Soon, her screams stopped.  Once the first girl calmed, Thaland eased the traumatic memories of the other two girls.  Their memories would clear and fill in as time healed them enough to deal with the details.  \n\nThaland escorted the three girls back to their neighborhood.  When other children greeted the girls and exclaimed over Rika’s blood-spattered form, Thaland let himself become ‘invisible’ again.  He still had to visit Isgil’s home and express his displeasure with the behavior of her father and uncle.  Such actions wouldn’t change the future of Kingston, Thaland knew, but it would change Isgil’s future.  A bucket filled one drop at a time.\n\nThaland began humming as he approached Isgil’s apartment building.  He didn’t think he would have to get as rough with the people there as he’d had to with the Guild’s men just a few moments earlier.",
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      "body": "He began striding purposefully toward the seedy, run-down district where Isgil’s family resided in a too-small apartment within a decrepit tenement.  Various potential scenes, ranging from pathetic to positively blood-thirsty, unfolded in Thaland’s imagination as he walked with ever-increasing speed toward Isgil’s home.  He turned from the broad, well-maintained thoroughfare into a lane too narrow for anything wider than a one-horse cart to pass without trouble.   That didn’t stop the rag merchants, sausage vendors and other enterprising souls from hawking their wares or services from the rough cobblestones as they navigated barrows, hand-carts and even a wagon or two, up and down the milling stream of dirty humanity.\n\nWashing hung from lines run between the tenements that lurked on either side of the lane, contributing to the illusion that the street was infested with giant spiders whose webs displayed the gutted remains of their previous victims.  The way the refuse and chamber pot spillings made the lane smell added to the dungeonesque illusion.\n\nMany of the buildings’ bottom floors were given over to shops offering wares ranging from mundane dry goods and the local bakery to fortune-tellers, a quarter of whom might have a fragment of true Talent. There were more than the usual sprinkling of pawn-brokers and second-hand shops.  Desperate people draw their own brand of vultures, Thaland knew.  He also knew that a large number of the managers of these shops had connections with the Thieves’ or Slavers’ Guilds and their stock had recently graced the homes or shops of the finer classes of Kingston or another coastal city.  A used doublet is a used doublet, who can say whether the former wearer parted willingly with it or not?  The same was often the case for lamps, half-burned candles or anything else here, for that matter.  No one was going to spend the coin for a Trace spell to recover something worth less than the spell unless there was a great sentiment involved, and the thieves, as well as their masters, knew it.\n\nIn the midst of these thoughts, a deep segment of Thaland’s attention was grabbed by a seemingly innocent scene two buildings away and behind him that would have escaped his notice only yesterday.  (Of course, yesterday, he would have been looking for someone to ambush him because of his uniform.) Only a grain would have fallen in a Time Glass in the time it took Thaland to assess the situation and grind his teeth in rage.  \nThaland couldn’t begin to count the number of bereaved families, siblings or parents that had come to him, fully expecting him or his subordinates to find a missing child.  The majority of the time, it was an attractive, nubile girl or almost beautiful boy.  He had often agonized in the countless Turns of the Glass he’d spent in fruitless searches for missing children; why couldn’t the flesh peddlers be satisfied with the uncounted cast-off children prowling the slums and leave the few wanted and loved children at home with their families.?\n\nIsgil’s father and uncle would have to wait.  Thaland could clearly read the fear and panic in the faces and thoughts of the three girls, and the predatory lust in the teenage boys and older men, as the children were skillfully herded away from the relative safety of their rented apartments.  \n\nEven had he seen the incident yesterday, there was no way he could have forced his way through the people and covered the intervening distance before the captors had gotten their prey hidden away and despoiled their virtue, and quite possibly the rest of their lives.  Even now, knowing that he could run full-tilt through the crowds, he despaired because the ruffians were pushing their captives around the corner of the further building into the alley.  A terrible sense of urgency seized the former watch captain. He needed to be there, in the alley, to protect the three girls.\n\nThaland wasn’t sure exactly how he’d done it, but he was aware of reaching across the distance to where he wanted to be.  He pulled and stepped through the people and buildings as though they were no more substantial than the harbor fog.\n\nWhen the world re-solidified, Thaland’s first impression was that the alley was filthy.  The stones were carpeted with a thick layer of decomposing refuse and populated with vermin ranging from lice and roaches to rats he couldn’t see yet could somehow sense to …the ruffian enforcers busily hustling their three young, barely pubescent, prisoners along the narrow passageway towards the as-yet unnoticed Justicar.\n\nThe first two enforcers, scouting for any interference, Thaland presumed, both ignored and avoided the cloak-shrouded figure, just as everyone else Thaland had encountered since his ‘death’.  Suddenly, Thaland was afraid that the rest of the oncoming crowd would pass by unseeing and uncaring.  He drew his sword with his right hand to block off the alley to his right and readied his left to catch the next ruffian that came within his reach.",
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      "body": "![slums 5.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdhnob2Tm1PDt1k5j5NZbsFRdXxBk8RqZpDmiXuhoUjm5/slums%205.jpg)\n\nDiesca’s worry was too much for Thaland’s still-human emotions.  Before he was compelled to show himself to, and comfort her, he tore his attention from the young woman to ‘peruse’ the thoughts of the others gathering around the well.  A middle-aged matron was concerned about her two eldest sons who’d begun running with the Tragelli Toughs, a local gang that ran a ‘protection’ racket extorting money from local merchants and families.  (Should he pay a visit to them and demonstrate the error of their ways?)  Another was full of thoughts about how the local matchmaker had successfully paired her sons with two local merchant’s daughters.  The dowrys would set the new couples in housekeeping and the prospective fathers-in-law were pleased with the match as well. \n\nThis, Thaland thought, was what he’d fought to protect; Ordinary, decent folk who didn’t have to concern themselves with anything beyond going about the common business of their lives.  These were the people he’d fought and, in a way, died to protect against the corrupt, lawless predators who inhabited the underbelly of civilization, sucking the joy and life from the city like ticks, fleas, tapeworms or any other parasite.  \n\nThaland considered his situation.  He’d accepted that he was now outside the day-to-day concerns of the ordinary living person.  The great question was whether the occasional, simple joy of the mortal life was beyond him as well.  He decided that he needed to answer that puzzle before he revealed himself to anyone.\n\nHe consciously drew a deep breath, the first inhalation since…had he been breathing since he’d experimented in the warehouse basement?  He found he was not sure.  The well-remembered expansion of the chest and abdomen occurred reluctantly, but it did occur.  The familiar tang of the salt air carried along with it the mixed sweet, sharp and pungent odors of civilization. After a few deeply savored breaths, his mind felt immeasurably better about his future.  Other than death holding no threat over him, his personality hadn’t changed much.\n\n A dirty, bruised, harried-looking girl rushed into the crowd surrounding the well, drawing Thaland’s attention.  The girl, named Isgil, was pre-occupied with thoughts and cares no pre-teen should have.  Her mother had recently died ‘falling down the stairs’ after a terrible fight with her uncle, who had since moved in with her family.  Both her father and uncle were frequently drunk and subject to terrible rages.  Her greatest troubles, however, were that her father and uncle had begun paying ‘special’ attention to her in ways she didn’t like.  They would come to her pallet at night and...  Thaland closed off Isgil’s mind quickly, embarrassed and mortified at what the girl’s thoughts implied.\n\nThaland’s formerly idle thoughts crystallized into a determination to do something to help Isgil.  A quick perusal of the girl’s memories revealed where she lived and that she was the oldest of the five children her mother had borne that still lived.  It was a sad fact that many babies born into this life did not live through their first winter, even in this relatively warm climate.  Fewer still lived through the seemingly endless list of mundane diseases and sporadic magical plagues that still appeared two millennia after the Mage Wars.\n\nThaland stood suddenly, startling several pigeons that had gathered about, but curiously, no people seemed to notice his abrupt movement other than wonder what might have startled the pigeons.  This, he presumed, was part of what legends called ‘The Shield of Justice’.  According to Andronicus, the Ancient Lore said that the Justicars moved unseen and untouched through the masses.  It appeared to Thaland that this was not due to great skill or stealth, but because the Justicars had some sort of ‘Don’t See Me/Don’t Touch Me’ aura that warded off all mortals.  That worked to his advantage for now.  However, he knew he would soon need to figure out how to get the attention of those he wanted to communicate with.  The recent episode with Grandfather Bones rose to mind.  A repeat performance with Isgil’s male relatives would probably be enough to stop their ‘special time’ with the girl.  Then again, Thaland’s hand clenched in a fist around his sword hilt, there were other methods that held certain appeal.",
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      "body": "![the_foreign_market_by_shutupandwhisper-d6v59li.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmckqQjUBBXm9R2d8XEp4moZ6RuV3t6XMbVCuwk1cUnUa6/the_foreign_market_by_shutupandwhisper-d6v59li.jpg)\nArt \"The Foreign Market\" by shutupandwhisper\n\n“Where to begin…Where to begin?” Thaland mused as he walked through the milling late night crowds.  His mind whirled with the copious knowledge provided by the undead archaeologist Andronicus.  Perhaps even more startling to the former watch commander was the fact that he never needed to refer to the copious notes or maps he had taken down.  Ah, well, perhaps he might need them later, or make a gift of them to an honest watchman of his squad.\nHis mind jumped back to his last morning as a human.  His death and rebirth as Justicar.  His men… “Are they still searching for me?” Thaland wondered.  “Do they presume me dead, taken by the same creature that tore the whore-mistress apart?”  Questions began to surface in Thaland’s mind; should he make contact with his men?  Did he dare do so?  While both he and they could certainly help each other, would that put them in more danger or distract him from his larger purpose?  \n\nAfter a few tortured moments of deliberation, he decided that Thaland needed to remain ‘dead’ to his squad.  He must remain an anonymous aid to the few honest and idealistic watch in Stormhaven.  If the guilds did not know who their new enemy was, they could not know who was precious to him.  Thus, they could neither blackmail him nor hurt his loved ones in retaliation. \n\nWhile Thaland certainly knew the surface features of Stormhaven as well as he knew his own hard, battle-scarred hands, the warren of natural and dug tunnels under the city were entirely new.  He decided to walk the tunnels’ routes along the surface so that he would know which houses might have access to the subterranean city.  With that determination, he began the task of tying the surface features to the tunnels.  If Inns, taverns, whorehouses or baths sat atop the routes, he would enter and note what point of the structure was closest to the tunnel.  He knew he could open any and all closed doors in the other buildings along the routes, but chose to adhere to his existing respect for people’s privacy so long as there was no reason to suspect criminal activity inside. \n\nAfter completing the task of ‘tunnel tying’, Thaland was astounded to note that the leading edge of Sol’s Chariot was just over the eastern horizon, painting the sea with shades of red and orange.  To the west, the Stormhaven Mountains echoed the colors from the barren, pale rock slabs of their peaks   How had he done that?  Yesterday, such a task would have taken a full day, if not longer.  “Okay,” he thought to himself.  “I apparently can either move faster than time or through time, or I can move very, very quickly but it seems ‘normal’ to me.”  He shook his head slowly as he pondered his new situation.  “On the positive side, I can buy a pie at the market and it will still be hot when I get home.”\n\nThaland thought better while moving.  That ability had worked well for him while walking his patrols.  It should also work well in his current position, he reasoned.  Eventually he found his feet retracing his accustomed path to the plaza that surrounded the public well near his former (and, he supposed, current) apartment.  Did a Justicar ‘live’ anywhere?  He apparently had no further need for rest, food or drink, yet he was not yet ready to completely sever himself from worldly desires, pleasures or comforts.  He searched his mind and feelings and concluded that though he’d become a Justicar (though he did not yet fully understand what that was), he was not an ascetic.  A Justicar should still be able to enjoy the pleasures of the life they had enjoyed before, shouldn’t they?  The training and education program for this duty had been quite…truncated.  Thaland supposed he would learn the rules as he went.\n\nPrevious to his conversion to the rank of Justicar, Thaland, a Captain of the Guard, Docks Division, had often concluded his overnight duties by relaxing on one of the benches or sections of waist-high wall that encircled the well and watched the glory of Sol’s Chariot ascending the eastern horizon.  Today, regardless of his vastly changed situation, he indulged in his familiar ritual.  The final portion of Sol’s Chariot rose above the horizon concluded his watching light and life return to the sky and city.\n\nThe good wives or eldest daughters of the local households made their daily pilgrimages to the plaza; fetching water for their respective households.  Thaland’s gaze turned to the rooming house he rented a room in.  At one time, the building had been a mansion, Thaland believed. Time and neglect had taken their inevitable toll on the structure though.  The steps, inside and out sagged, roof tiles, bricks and stones were missing from the roof and walls.  He was not a carpenter or mason, but nevertheless he reasoned that the structure needed to be repaired soon or it would be too far gone to save.\n\nGoodwife Macon, his landlady, emerged from the doorway with Diesca, her eldest daughter.  Thaland had occasionally caught Diesca gazing at him or loitering over her duties when they brought her into his proximity.  At nineteen, Diesca was practically an old maid, and Goody Macon had occasionally made none-too-subtle hints that Thaland would make an excellent father for the children Diesca wanted.  Thaland had only the previous day wished he could know Diesca’s true, inner-most thoughts on the matter.  Now, as he gazed upon her admittedly desirable form, he found he could.\n\nDiesca’s surface thoughts were occupied with the upcoming duties of her day.  The deeper thoughts were divided between the confusing desires the Watch Captain aroused in her mind and body and concern because he wasn’t around.  The Captain had been supposed to come back before noon the previous day.  She’d stayed up late, watching for him and awakened early to find his room was empty and undisturbed.  Now though she desperately scanned the crowd, she didn’t see him in the plaza. \n\nHer mind was obsessing over the rumors about what had happened yesterday in the dock warehouse district.  The stories said the Thieves’ Guild had trapped a troublesome Watch Captain in a warehouse and used a Blood Magic spell to kill everything in the building.  A different version told of Grandfather Bones, the ancient vampire who was said to serve as the guilds’ assassin, had gone rogue, killing several Guild enforcers who’d been there to witness the captain’s demise.  Both versions wondered at the fact that the captain’s body had not been found.  Was he alive?  Had the ageless blood-sucker drug him back to its lair like so many others?",
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      "body": "“I trust a Justicar.” Grandfather Bones insisted.  “It was written in the Scrolls of Klamath IV that Justicars cannot lie, they also see the souls of the living and thus know each person’s character.  I charge you to use my treasures to benefit the innocent and the victimized.  That is something a person with my…condition… and its attendant…appetites…cannot.”\n“Take my offer, Justicar.  All I ask is that you not terminate my existence.” Grandfather Bones offered with a trace of hope.  “I have spent my endless years recovering, cataloging and preserving the glories of our previous knowledge.”  With a sad, ironic smile, the vampire added, “I can travel freely where no living creature may survive “\n\n“I could terminate you and use your treasures anyway,” Thaland stated flatly.  He sensed that Grandfather Bones was concealing something of great importance.  Despite the vampire’s great power, it feared him (or his power).  A few more threats should convince the creature to talk.\n\nThe vampire’s face registered an instant of stark terror at the realization of the truth in Thaland’s threat.  Grandfather Bones’ form softened into smoke and rapidly rose toward the slatted floor above.  \n\nThaland lunged with inhuman speed, grabbed the bottom of the form with his free hand and willed the vampire back into solid form.   Grandfather Bones let out a cry of mingled surprise and fear as he suddenly solidified and dropped heavily to the floor.\n\n“I shall agree to nothing until you reveal what you are hiding from me,” Thaland stated as he pressed tip of the charcoal-colored blade against the vampire’s neck.  “I shall not trust you until you trust me.”\n\n“Very well, Justicar,” Grandfather Bones said in a resigned tone as he raised his arms in a gesture of surrender.  “I shall tell you my secret.  The reason no bodies of many of my ‘assassination targets’ were ever found is that there were no dead bodies to find.  I taught myself sufficient magic to bring a person with me when I vaporize.  This allows me to capture a person and bring them with me to the catacombs.  From there, I guided them out of the city through the ancient tunnels with supplies and coin sufficient to see them to somewhere safe.”  The vampire paused a moment, then looking almost as a student caught cheating on an exam, added, “I have had to use my ‘persuasive’ powers to convince some to seek a better life elsewhere, for they cared not a whit about the Guilds’ determination to kill them.  The only true kills I made at the Guilds’ behest were targets who I believed truly deserving of death.”\n\n“I swear to you upon my word as a scholar that I will continue to feed only on animals and those who prey on their fellow people, and that I will not pass my condition on to anyone.”\n\n“Oh?” Thaland asked questioningly.\n\n“To pass on the curse, a vampire must bite their victim three times in a single dark cycle of White without killing them.  If those conditions are not met, the bitten person suffers only from loss of blood.”\n\nThaland carefully examined the vampire’s statements and offer for deceptive words or intent, and found none.  “Agreed,” he declared with finality.  “You will be held to your word, Grandfather Bones.  You may wish to move your treasury at this time. The Guild may decide those you killed had a value that needs to be redeemed out of your gold.  I shall make my calls upon your treasury at my own discretion.”  \n\n“You trust me to keep our bargain?” the vampire asked, genuinely taken aback by the show of trust.\n\n“Why not?” the Justicar replied, sheathing his sword.  “You’re being honest, at least at the moment.  Should you try to break this deal, I shall know it.  You cannot escape me or my retribution, and you know it.”  \nThaland smiled thinly.  “Besides, you may want to reclaim the honor Kingston believes the Guild purchased so cheaply.  I believe that we can work together to regain that.”\n\nA faint trace of life lit Grandfather Bones’ pale features in the form of a thin, vicious smile.\n\nIt was nearly midnight before the Justicar and the vampire parted company.  Androndicus (Grandfather Bones’ living name) had an extensive and precise knowledge of the buried ruins, and the catacombs beneath them, that the present city of Stormhaven rested upon.  There was no tunnel or chamber used by the Guild, as well as leagues they did not, that the undead scholar didn’t know about.  Now Thaland shared in that knowledge and intended to use it well in his crusade.  The Guilds would come to regret the day they’d killed Thaland of the Walk.",
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      "body": "Hi! I am a robot. I just upvoted you! I found similar content that readers might be interested in:\nhttps://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2127961-Thaland-of-the-Walk",
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      "body": "A sudden sense of impact through his entire body jarred Thaland’s mind into awareness.  His eyes reluctantly opened, giving him a close-up perspective of slightly mildewed boards resting atop rough-fitted stone.  A short moment of disorientation passed before Thaland realized he was exactly where he had ‘died’, lying face-down on the stone floor of the warehouse basement.  \n\nSo, the job did not come with any special perks like physical comfort or soft beds.  His entire body, every muscle, tendon and bone seemed to with excruciating pain.  Thaland groaned softly and moved his arms experimentally. His limbs refused to obey at first.  Only deliberate focus forced them to slowly, reluctantly, respond to the commands his mind was sending.  He slowly dragged his right hand to his head as he also forced his neck to bring his face toward it.  A silvery-gray ring with subtle, complex engravings was on his middle finger.\nSo it was real, he was a Justicar!!  The guard captain literally smiled painfully as he slowly forced the rest of his pain-wracked body to obey his commands.  After what seemed an eternity, he rose to his hands and knees before crawling to the stack of crates Grandfather Bones had been hiding behind.  After a brief rest, Thaland’s screaming muscles eased their complaints, allowing him to use the crates’ external framing as a ladder to climb to a standing position.\n“I am surprised to see you moving, guardsman,” came Grandfather Bones’ voice from the direction of the trapdoor.  “Every person, cat, rat and roach in this building is deceased, yet you still move.  You shall have to tell how you have accomplished this before I replenish myself on your blood.”\n\nThaland stiffened at the vampire’s words.  His mind was curiously both paralyzed with fright and contemptuous of the undead creature’s promises.  He drew a deep, steadying breath and was startled to not feel air moving through his windpipe.  He exhaled forcefully with his left hand in front of his mouth and detected only a wisp of air caress his fingertips.  He put his hand to his neck to check his pulse; nothing.  Nothing?  Was he then truly an undead?  Thaland was just about to pull his finger away when the slightest thump of blood passed through his artery.  \n\nSomewhere between life and death then?  As odd at it seemed, it also made sense for the judgement passed during the passage from life to eternity.  Thaland’s mind reeled as it tried to accommodate itself to his sudden change in perspective.  He was startled to find himself chuckling, which only served to make the situation more ridiculous.  How he could make the sound without truly breathing, he didn’t know, but it was there.  The chuckling grew into raucous laughter that threatened to dissolve in hysterics.  Thaland clung to the boxes for support as his body threatened to collapse.\n\n“What is this?” Grandfather Bones asked in a truly surprised tone.  He was used to inducing terror and begging from his intended victims, not mirth.  “Why are you laughing?” the undead being demanded when Thaland’s hysterics continued.\nThaland waved his left hand in acknowledgement of the vampire’s words and struggled to restore reason’s control of his mind.  “I am laughing Grandfather Bones, because you can no longer threaten me.  You may damage my body, but you cannot kill me…I have already died.”\n\n“How is that you move, then?  What do you mean?” Grandfather Bones demanded incredulously.\n\n“The spell, whatever it was, killed me.  My spirit went to the next world,” Thaland replied as he steadied himself and turned.  “At the gates of eternity, I was offered the chance to come back and work justice on the world.”  Thaland raised his right hand, exposing the ring, “I took it.”\n\n“A Justicar,” Grandfather Bones breathed in horrified awe.  “The legends of old speak truly.”\n\n“Aye,” Thaland replied, suddenly sure of himself and his duty.  “You have much to answer for, Grandfather Bones.  Your very existence is a blight in White’s eyes and your role as a hand-fed executioner is an insult to the powers Blood gave you upon your transformation.”\n\nThe vampire recoiled from Thaland’s vehemence, then bristled in rage.   “You dare to judge me?  You, who were quaking before my presence this very Turn?”  Grandfather Bones quivered in rage.  “I have been killing and feeding on the living for nearly a millennia!”\n\nSudden knowledge sprang unbidden into Thaland’s mind. “Just as you, after you wandered down the wrong passage in a forgotten crypt, I am no longer who or what I was.”  Thaland countered, advancing a step toward the vampire.   “The difference is, The Scale-Bearer is particular who he bestows his powers upon, Blood’s depravity is splashed about like paint from a shattered pot.”\n\nThaland stooped to retrieve his sword from the straw-flecked floor, noting the changes worked upon his sword with interest.  The plain, round pommel had transformed into a highly-detailed skull.  The simple bar of the cross-guards now resembled a balance scale and the silvery steel of the simple blade was now a charcoal-toned wave-like flamberge-style blade. \n\nThe new Justicar held the blade in ‘guard’ position and advanced another stride, drawing great satisfaction from watching the vampire shrink away.   “You are a shameful thing, Grandfather Bones.  The evil you have done since your conversion to the undead blots out your former honest pursuit of knowledge.”  \n\n“Grant me your benevolent mercy, Justicar,” the vampire pleaded in a slightly quavering voice.  “I destroyed any semblance of symbiosis with the Guilds when I killed their servants just now.”\n\n“That does nothing to atone for the people you’ve killed as the Guild’s pet assassin,” Thaland replied brusquely as he advanced another stride.  Faint traces of blue and white sparks traced the cutting edges of the blade as he prepared to strike.\n\n“Wait, wait!” Grandfather Bones wailed in terror.  “I have gathered and stored treasure, scrolls and valuable artifacts in my dwelling!  I shall give it freely to you to distribute to those who need it!”\n\n“You trust a lowly Captain of the Watch with your fortune?” Thaland relaxed his stance from ‘attack’ to ‘guard’.  He was taken aback by this apparent show of trust (or was it desperation?) but refused to trust the vampire now any more than he would have as a mortal.",
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      "body": "Thanks a million for this... Will correct asap. *hugsssz",
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      "body": "When the guilds moved, they did not act with subtly.  Twice, small squad of thugs ambushed him.  Once between the Watch Station and his home, the second on the route between the Station and the docks.  He’d survived each attack, killing or wounding each of the thugs.  When the surviving attackers talked, Thaland acted.  Those who’d commanded the thugs were pursued, captured, questioned and dealt with.  \nThinking that he was winning, Thaland stepped up his attacks.  Though prostitution was not against any laws, the whore (male or female) had to be fifteen (both physically and mentally mature to conduct business) and be UnBonded (able to leave the establishment at will).  Despite the ‘UnBonded’ law, some establishments attempted to both dodge the age regulation and effectively enslave their ‘product’ by buying the debts or fines of children who were orphans, beggars or just from penniless families.  By adding wildly inflated ‘costs of housing and feeding’ those bonded by debt to the legal obligation, the debtors found themselves effectively enslaved by their ‘benefactors’.  Because the debt-bond laws had no controls for age beyond suckling infants, it effectively allowed the purchase and enslavement of anyone from toddlers to the extremely aged.\nThe Powdered Palace, a pleasure house with ties to both guilds was widely known for ‘fresh’ and ‘exceptionally compliant’ whores.  The establishment’s manager was known to frequent debt sales and purchase far more pantry maids and stable boys than the establishment could ever use.  In addition, those who patronized The Powdered Palace spoke of both the compliant ‘young stuff’ there bearing curious scars on their wrists and ankles and the new ‘Privileged Area’ that commanded an exclusive, and expensive membership. \nThaland acted one he believed the bonded children, the exclusive members-only area and the scarred ‘young stuff’ amounted to evidence of child sex-enslavement.  He and his twenty-man squad attacked in the pre-dawn twilight a mere Turn of the (Time) Glass after the place closed.  The establishment doors bore powerful Sealing runes, preventing them from breaking or opening.  However the wood and stone outside the doorframes easily shattered under the Rending spells cast by the squad wizards.  \nThe unorthodox raid, done without approval from or notice to, the watch commanders or any legal authorities, caught the entire house by surprise.  The few house guards were either half-drunk or asleep and easily dealt with.  House servants and staff (many with elegant locked metal bands around their wrists, ankles and necks were rounded up and quickly ‘persuaded’ to cooperate and guide half the squad into the ‘Privileged Area’.  Thaland led the rest of squad into the upper floors of the house where the legal whores and the establishment manager lived.  The delays caused by rending the walls around several sealed doors allowed the woman to escape by climbing down a concealed ladder in a false chimney.  \nThaland recklessly pursued her for several blocks through tenement blocks, merchant houses and into the warehouse blocks at the waterfront.  He caught sight of her descending into the crate and barrel-cluttered basement of a small warehouse.  Just as he began to reach out to seize the woman, an arm suddenly shot out from a stack of crates and lifted her up from the floor by her neck before jerking her out of view.  \nStunned into immobility, Thaland listened to the woman’s strangled scream, cut short by the sounds of tearing fabric mixed with a gurgling, meaty, tearing sound and a spray of blood on the far wall.  He swallowed heavily drawing his plain, un-adorned standard-issue sword as the woman’s headless body, her silk nightdress and fur-trimmed robe alike darkly spattered with her life’s blood, was tossed from behind the crates.  The meaty splat of the decapitated corpse landing (three yards from the crates) mingled with the clanging of trapdoor behind him slamming shut.  The heavy, dragging sounds and metal-on wood thuds announced that that exit was now closed to him.\n“Enjoy your time with Grandfather Bones!” a mocking voice shouted down through the floorboards.  “Aye, Thaland,” another voice added raucously. “Clap yer bracelets on him, if ya can!”  Several other voices shouted encouragement to Grandfather Bones, urging him to make a messy, lingering end to ‘The Walk-Warden’, as Thaland had come to be known.\n“You forget, gutter-spawn,” a disembodied, sepulchral voice pronounced from everywhere and nowhere.  “Floorboards and grates hold the living prisoner, not one such as I.  I feed and kill as I will.  Your commands try my patience.”\nThaland’s heart sank to his knees and the sword nearly slipped from his fingers.  This wasn’t something mortal he’d been trapped with.  Grandfather Bones was legend.  The vampire was reputed to have an ‘arrangement’ with the Thief’s Guild.  In exchange for not meddling in the affairs of the living, Grandfather Bones was supplied with a steady stream of food in the form of people troublesome to the Guild’s leaders was said to be a minor detail, if it mattered at all, to the undead executioner.  Bloody items of clothing and minor personal possessions were the only remnants ever found.\nThe raucous yells from above increased, but Thaland’s mind had no room for them.  His thoughts focused only upon how to survive this encounter with the legendary vampire.  Failing that, he hoped to retain some vestige of himself in whatever awaited him on the far side of death’s door.  His thoughts ran in panicked circles, sifting through his mind for any fragment of folklore or legend related to vampires, or how to kill them.\nA sudden, blood-chilling howl shattered Thaland’s thoughts.  A stream of dark vapor shot up from behind the crates and through the gaps between the floorboards above.  The mocking shouts from above suddenly became panic-stricken cries of terror which, one by one, were cut off in mid-scream.\nThaland forgot his immediate concerns in the horrible fascination of watching what appeared to be a mild-mannered man in the robes of an ancient Imperial Academic, devastating a gang of street toughs that would have given a squad of his best patrolmen a hard time.   The toughs that could still move soon fled.  As their footsteps faded, a harsh, Power-Laced syllable sounded from the main doors and crackled through the gaps in the floorboards above.  A flash of other-worldly energy blasted through the warehouse and was gone.\nThaland felt himself falling, falling into a great darkness punctuated at irregular intervals by colored points of light.  He approached a warm, brown light that eventually resolved itself into a door-shaped portal through which he could hear sounds of singing and the raucous clash of swords in mock combat.  He yearned to pass through the portal to the revelry beyond, despite the knowledge that to do so would mean that the Thieves’ Guild had beaten him.  His hands reached for the rim of the portal, then stopped.  His regret at losing his low-level war with The Guild hardened into an ardent desire to take any avenue to extract justice, or at least vengeance from his enemies.\nSuddenly, an ornately engraved ring of silvery-gray metal appeared on in the air before him.  “Do you thirst for justice to be done more than you thirst for the drink of the righteous dead?” asked a powerful voice in the back of Thaland’s mind.  “Would you make yourself a tool in the hand of He Who Bears the Scales?”\nThaland’s mind staggered.  The Aspect of White devoted to Justice was commonly thought to not bother with the living.  Few outside the legal professions gave him any consideration other than the abstract knowledge that the Scale-Bearer weighed the souls of the deceased and sent them to their eternal reward according to their life’s deeds.  Yet, story-tellers and bards knew of ancient legends that said otherwise.  The legends told of Justicars, ordinary persons devoted to true justice, plucked from the midst of the peoples and given vast powers to bring villains (protected by power and influence from mortal justice) to account using their own methods and time-table.  Some said the Justicars were living immortals, immune to all manners of death. Others said they were undead, filled with the dark powers of the night-dwellers.\nThaland’s sense of duty and purpose made his decision in an instant.  Here was his chance!  He would no longer need to rely on weak, corruptible people in the constabulary or on the court bench to carry out justice!  He was being offered license to become an instrument in the hand of Justice itself!  As he grasped the ring with his left hand, Thaland sensed the overwhelming Power in the overlapping runes concealed in the ring’s engravings.  His hands trembled slightly as he slid the band onto the middle finger of his right hand.\nThe instant the ring settled into place, Thaland felt it surge with released Divine Power, pushing the portal away from his grasp.  The portal shrank rapidly into the distance as Thaland’s mind ‘flew’ backward at an ever-increasing pace.  The ring was indeed transporting his spirit back to the realm of the living!",
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