An Unexpected Sanctuary [Liar]

[Ezra Crenshaw]

31rst day of Winter, 511 AV

Cold, muddy fingers rapped against a door in the foreboding back alleys  of the Southern Quarter. The noise echoed with each dull thud, too loud. It had been a fortunate night, and he didn't want to spoil it. At every turn he resigned to being caught either by a member from the cloth enforcing curfew or monsters from the Aperture looking for a midnight snack, but so far his luck had held. The building looked like it had seen better days, paint peeled along the banister, shutters rotted and a trail of ivy slinked down the unassuming hovels facade. Perhaps it didn't entertain many visitors, and if so they were a pair, a matching set of relics from the Celestial Cities past.

The hobbled man took a cautious look around, hoping no busy bodied neighbor would encroach dogma to sneak a peak at the outsider evading Nykan rules. At night, the side street emptied like most of the city, though this part was left intentionally forgotten. Nothing short of a callous foreigner could convince the warring factions to fracture superstition and venture down its cobbled roads. Nykans feared the rumors of foul magics surrounding the place and they were content to leave the Nine Staves to its own devices. It resided unguarded, cordoned off from Wheat Street. A bastion in the dark against the horrors from the deep.

Impatience got the best of him and he strayed a few steps out from under the canopy, stealing a glance at each of the two openings above for a flicker of life. None came. He didn't want to rouse the neighbors, no matter how far out of earshot they were, but the need for fast shelter was quickly outweighing discretion.

"Terrible business, Goddess," the shadowed man muttered to himself as a brisk, winter wind chilled through his tattered clothes. He huddled muddied hands against his chest for warmth. Then, almost in answer to unspoken prayers, he heard a rumble in the sky. The clouds had finally decided to open up.

Ezra Crenshaw laughed for the third time that night and stretched his hands in the open air. The ruddy earth slumped from his moistened digits and he slapped his palms together in glee. An offered silent prayer of thanks, then he set to the task of rubbing free the remaining debris. The roaring thunder would mask the noise and might keep some of the more lively critters at bay. A prayer of thanks indeed.

As the battered figure marched up the cobbled stone in confidence, offering once again a sharp set of knocks he noticed a light flickering under the door in the looming darkness. His knuckles plied a jovial tune this time and the knotted door creaked on cast iron hinges in a somber duet.

Ezra shielded his eyes from the sudden candle light and uttered the first words spoken to another living human being in almost fifteen years : "Sanctuary, please. Sanctuary."

For that first time in ages forgotten, the exiled son returned home.

[Liar]

There were delicate glass spectacles perched on the end of her nose; soft and scented fingers caressed the time-roughened vellum of an old scroll as she scrutinized its glyphs. The door opened and the light of many candles poured into the wet night, dueling with the glow of a lantern that hung above the door. The fires danced to the new damp air as it mingled with the inside’s heavy incense, but the woman behind the table offered no such invitation. The little room soaked up his words, his desperation and his glory. She finished one task before she started another. “Close the door, would you?” She said, removing the little apparatus from her nose as she turned her gaze up to him. Only then did a smile bloom on her lips. Her palm opened towards the chair that stood at the other end of a large circle of a table. “Sit.” She could not know what he had endured, what horrors he had seen, what betrayals he had suffered. But she could see his scars and she knew they were different than the lines that wheatwhips made. They were not the product of a monk’s wrath, but of some beast, or many. Her peering eyes caught green in the undulating light as they moved to meet the lopsided pair on this stranger’s face. Sighing away her smile, she pushed the scroll across the table. “This is a basic shielding glyph,” she explained, as if she were expecting him. She had, after all, sat through his incessant knockings before he finally tried the unlocked handle. “The writing on the edge says Touch and speak Help. But don’t.” She took it back before he could, looking over it again. “Even without activation, its energy persists. Its essence, you might say. Like drops of water through a crack in the roof, it leaks out and protects us in different, more subtle ways. Follow the instructions and you knock a hole in the roof, inundate yourself with the djed it holds. But if you leave it, let it drip, it can be used for seasons.” Having completed her impromptu lesson, the woman sighed and rolled the paper noisily into itself. “I am not a healer,” she admitted, turning her full attention to him, finally. Her next words were almost like a question. “But I am a pretty good listener.”

[Ezra Crenshaw]

Her words carried weight. It wasn’t the guarded confidence of a sailor’s wife, nor the stubborn poise of a businesswoman. No. As she spoke it was with a cautious callousness like the bark of a pup. She was bound by the shopkeeper’s hospitality but set strict boundaries of her own in her home. Lines formed in the parchment as her dainty pale hand creased it, its pallor made rosy from warming in the candlelight. He wondered if she’d ever ventured beyond the Nine Stave’s front porch. Though it didn’t matter. The assertive tone, the engaging lesson, it was his own private symphony.

Ezra watched how the room seemed to flicker with life, casting fuzzy shadows on musty tomes over the smell of rosemary and lilac. On bookshelves and corners and hung from scones around the room, mostly spent candles dripped hot wax from fiery plumes. The place had a definite pedigree, the place had a purpose.

A special silence lingered in the air, he just couldn’t bring himself to spoil it. Others had given him the same onecing over, stopping above a gash down past the hazel in his right eye and along the forked scar in his cheek. Disfigured skin poked out from under his shirt made of bandages. ‘It’s a marvel that he’s alive,’ they thought. A miracle he knew all too well.

“You trade my currency, only fair I barter in kind.” Ezra interrupted, patiently working over the glyph’s lesson, “You can give a man a fish, that about the sum of it?”

He nodded in abject confidence and adjusted in the offered seat with a long sigh before continuing. “This tale,” he brought a single bony finger to a discoloration in the skin above his left breast to illustrate his point, “S’how I was taught to ‘fish’.”

Daddy would take me out by skiff, that’s a boat if you’re polite. Put his foot down at the helm and all the men say 'aye'. This’a man right touched at the wheel, mind, and off we’d get. Cap’n call out baton this and hem that, all the while I never paid it much nevermind. All I could see was him. My Daddy, king of the sea.

It’s not right to call a man above the sea, ‘cause she’s a pretty little miss who can get up in a tussle right quick and fit to split. I eventually made her list, but that’s a walk out another way. Nets hit the water, come up full of fish. I paid it no nevermind then, but wanted the helm. Begged him to let me take her home then. He just smiled at me, told me ‘Tomorrow, I’ll teach you to cap’n’.

She was a beautiful filly, the Clandestine christened like a crime. The way back, cap a’rowed it landways. Dock it too. And when all was done and said, men set to undressin that skiff. I found mesself at pride of place. Child hands on that grand, knobby wheel like a field mouse wearin’ workin’ man’s pants. Hit the switch and the boat started to skip, that means it went aground miss.

You see I had to have it then, right then. Didn’t know whether we was comin’ or goin’ but it had to be then. A big crash as she skipped the dock and the tow line split, stung like a wheatwhip as it crossed my left breast. Daddy showed up, gave me a good wallop and set the wheel back on pitch. Next day, Daddy had me scrub the deck.

Ash from the incense crackled and Ezra Crenshaw let his tale dissipate. Then abruptly his back straightened against the chair and he smiled a wide grin. A tear splattered against the floor from his wounded left eye, but he held back the rest. Just one would suffice.

“A sailor need to walk before he can swim, ma’am,” he said through a toothy smile, “and that’s the lesson I think you have a’mind. Much obliged!”

In his fingers he produced a few coins from between bandages, he placed them on the table with a questioning look in his eyes. "If there be nothing else, can you lend a room for the night?"

OOCEzra interpreted what Ren said as a story with a meaning that sanctuary isn't something she can give but that she can teach him to provide his own sanctuary. He feels the proper response is to give her a story in kind that explains that he knows the value of being a good listener. Sorry if it's confusing...Ezra is a confusing guy I think!

[Liar]

The smile that grew from the seed of Ezra’s story was softer than her initial actions might have sown. She never meant to be callous, no matter how she might seem. She was more experienced in study and thought than she was in the intricacies of social interaction; the words she spoke were simply the ones she knew, even though they seemed joyless riddles to most. His were not the words she had expected, but she was happier for them than another tale of mistreatment and misery. His current troubles were not relevant, if he did not want them to be. She stayed his request, if only for a moment, busying her hands by wrapping a short stretch of twine around the scroll. “Children have wisdom many adults lack,” she reassured him. “Your father was not wrong to trust you, whatever his decision cost him. When I was a girl, my mother told me not to speak to people I did not recognize, or look at them for too long. I did not listen.” The scratch of hemp on paper whistled between her fingers. The knot was tied, the magic sealed. “I have heard many stories since then, some with lessons and some without, from strangers and dearest friends. They are what we make of them, if we want to make anything.” She winked. People saw what they wanted in words, but that did not make their impressions any less significant. Where before she had taken a long moment to examine him, the laats on the table earned only a glance. “True sanctuary demands no price,” she reminded him. “Come.” Then she stood, hooking her glasses on her collar. Her arm twitched beneath her sleeve as she debated the extent of proper hospitality, but as she rounded the table she offered the man her hand. “I will prepare a bath for you, if you’ll let me—after I extinguish the candles. Do you need to help to climb the stairs?”

[Ezra Crenshaw]

“Yes ma’am, ‘fraid, I’ll be needin’ whatever’s on offer,” Ezra said with a kind-hearted grin.

At the woman’s insistence, he coerced himself to leave the chair with the self-made promise of returning soon. It was hard work. Between the difference in age, the recent harrowing escape from the bowels of the earth and the long absence from civilized life, Ezra found it increasingly difficult to give up the simple comforts of a subtle yet form-fitting seat. The well-versed shopkeeper made it look easy.

Reluctantly, Ezra endeavored to accept the outstretched hand. It didn’t really take much to convince him and he realized the persistence of his host would not falter. The damp old man abruptly relented, slapping a splayed palm against his right knee like he was waking it up from a nap. The opposite side required a loving massage and he worked fingers into it before grasping the wooden arm rests in a bony grip. Knuckles whitened as he shoehorned himself out, his noisy body rebelling like a creaking house settling on questionable foundation.

“Now, this is goin’ back a’ways,” Ezra started, pressing a calloused hand against hers as he fumbled on the stairs. “(Aperture’s End! Oh, pardon that miss, hip’ll be right as rain in the mornin’. Jus’ these stormy night’s give me a sailor’s kick, right quick.) Ahem...A’ways, now.

Don’t ‘spose you ever get out to th’ Flaxen District in Eastern Quarter, but it’s there if’n you might get a inklin’ to browse the local what-have-you. Now, there’s a pub in the Theater daddy was fond of, not really a place to bring the misses or the young’un’s in tow but in my early adulthood it fixed a spell of, oh, all kinda things.

We’d be unwindin’ after undressin’ the ships, never a’mind to hurt a girl but the Clandestine was a ship see, and we’d come across ol’ Chelaeus. Rival cap’n but wasn’t a nothin’ on the king of the sea.

Chelaeus had a dog, big ol’ thing, was taken to fret. We’d be out on the dock’ unhitchin’ the line and foldin’ them sails so they could swallow wind while our nets catch the waters, and that boy would be goin’ at ‘em. Bam. Bam. Bam. With a switch. Then we’d come back when the sun was gone an’ Bam. Bam. Bam. He’d get right back to it.

Funny thing is, though I don’t reckon you’d find it a laugh, but when that prick’d be sourin’ himself on whatever the Theater had tapped, that dog would be a’hollerin’. An’ nobody could get a muzzle on it.

Me an’ daddy’d say ‘Chelae, can’t you do nothin’ ‘bout that dog?’, he’d just say ‘Every day, I get at that mutt but he won’t shut for what’s good’ ol’ boy was a pig. Many a night I’d had enough of it and was fix’n to set the dog loose. Daddy just say ‘no, only th’ dog’ll free that dog.’ And he sounded right ‘bout that.

Ezra paused from telling his story to shuffle up the last few steps. The woman took the cue and set about to tamping out the incense and muffling the light. In moments after the first candle was extinguished, a bittersweet aroma of melted wax and singed twine filled his nostrils and he stopped to breath it in deep. He greedily clung to the pleasure of it, elated to still be alive enough to appreciate the fume. As the atmosphere in the room darkened he finished the tale.

I had a’mind to fix that dog for many a’year. Chelaeus wasn’t a right man, I never knew how such and such a folk could get by. But there he was each year, shorin’ up his ship in the grand ol’ Nykan bay.

Finally, Chelaeus didn’t make it home from th’ barstool we left ‘em at. Got in a row with such and such, wouldn’t ‘spose it was over th’ dog. Only somethin’ got real ugly, right quick. Chelaeus stopped a blow with his teeth an’ it spun his neck ‘round the wrong ways, beg pardon miss.

Daddy gave me a nod the next night an’ I cut the ol’ hollerin’ dog loose. It was a’hollerin’ every night since that dumb brute of a man was gone. We tried to shoo it a’ways, tried gettin’ the infirmary to come take a look, treat all types of things there. But no, eventually that ol’ dog died. Waitin’ for the man that beat him.

Ezra didn’t know if the story was a weight on the girl but he gave her a knowing nod just the same. He waited for the shopkeeper to finish with the candles.

“I think there’s a make of every tale, big or small. This one’s a part ‘bout me and a part ‘bout you. For me, you can’t beat Nyka out’a man. Can’t go if’n I wanted to,” he said with a haze in his eyes, “but for you? Let no one, not even your momma, tell you what to do. Know it or not, you jus’ saved my life.”

[Liar]

Ren nodded silently, eyes filled with thought. She guided him to the bathroom’s only chair before she closed the door behind her, leaving his story to linger in the dim quiet as she worked. The rain drummed against the roof and distorted the blue moonlight that shone through the small window, masking the beat of her footsteps as she crossed the room. It was warmer than it should have been; she opened a shutter in the far corner and revealed that a small fire had been burning there, warming a large kettle of water. It had been simmering for her, but the evening’s occasion required she offer it to her guest. Using the rags on a nearby shelf, she lifted the thing with surprising strength and tipped it into the brass tub at the center of the room. Warmth condensed on the cold window. Though she was apparently quite young, Ren helped the man from his chair and into the tub with utmost care and patience. Only when he was sufficiently settled did she rise to steal a candle from another wall and light it on the dying flames. She shuffled back to him quickly, setting the candle holder on the bath’s precarious ledge. “Many come here, when they have nowhere else to turn,” she explained. “Whatever your troubles, that dog is no example. You are not ignorant to the meaning of death. You are not punished without reason. Nyka is our mother, caring for us, cherishing us, and demanding of us. She has not been kind today, but you will see better days. You are right not to abandon Her, but neither should you do so blindly.” The candlelight danced furiously on its wax pedestal, shining irregularly on the crusted metal basin and throwing long shadows around them. The low light filled Ren’s youthful face with shadow, dug into every crease and blemish. She attempted a smile as she spilled a short line of sandalwood-scented liquid into the bath, then made the water froth on her rag. She had pulled up her sleeves and was beginning to trace the contours of his sharp shoulder blades with warm moisture. “Do you have a place to stay? I can keep you here for the night, but not forever.” She skipped a beat, as if she realized it was the wrong thing to say. “To save a life is one thing. To live it is another. How can I help you live yours?”

[Ezra Crenshaw]

Ezra felt flush. The soothing water lapped at the fresh wounds in his bare skin, begging an ecstatic moan as he submerged in the tub. It felt good to wash, dirt and blood mixing in the warmth and turning the translucent blue to crimson. The steam broke through the panic that had settled in his heart like rain drowning out the fog. How long had it been since he last bathed? 

He had piled the thin bits of gauze that normally consealed his scars in a clump near the door revealing a slapdash mural of cross-stitched lines arching in different directions and varying lengths. Several appeared to be bite marks and scratches from a large animal,the evidence of each wrapped around his frail limbs like bandages around a barber pole. While those wounds were disparaging, some of them even recent, the bulk of scars appeared to be from the lashings of a wheat whip. In his long absence from civilization muscles had degraded, bones in the spine bent and twisted and his hairline had receded like fleeing the change from voluptuous black to a brilliant white.

Still, he left his infectious smile intact. As Ren poured her belief in Nyka over Ezra along with the splashings of now bloodied water, he knew the moral of his tales missed their mark. Half of it by his own intention, but it filled him with radiant pride just the same. A silent and beautiful joke told by the Goddess of all, he was certain she was like that.

"If'n you have the know of it, I could use a place," he replied pressing lanky fingers against a large bandage over his left hip with a wince, " Crenshaw estate long since dried up but my daddy left a coin or so for a day like such. I've a'mind to work, I may be old but not yet broke. Can't go back east to th' bay, too much to remember.' And too many who could remember.

Ren dragged the rag over his shoulder again letting the warm water seep into the cracks in his skin. He timed it right and caught her hand, clasping it tight with what he hoped would come off as sincerity. He turned a somber gaze to meet her and coughed into his free hand before saying, "Which of the four do I need t'thank in your name, miss?"

Ezra Crenshaw would gladly pay penance to the one she championed but the piece of the story withheld would make the futility of that claim evident. The four were Chelaes, not the monsters or the men, but the Alvinas that had beat him. And the switch was Danel Crenshaw.

[Liar]

“Thank them all. It is your duty.” She said it with a smile, but there was something visibly off about the gesture which she would never explain to a stranger. Still, as she draped the cloth over the side of the basin and gently squeezed his fragile fingers, she could not help but add a few words. “But also thank the powers that be, my friend. Your luck, your instinct, your fate. Gods and Alvina have the power to give to us, and to take away, but they cannot control our will. There is a power in the in-between, and if you look for it, you will find truth.” A short silence hung between them. Ren stared at him for a few moments, wondering as to his opinion on the matter, but as soon as he showed sign of responding, she looked away. Rubbing a conscious itch on her face, she stood. Her legs were stiff as she strode to a collection of robes that hung in one corner (clearly they were accustomed to entertaining guests here, as the fabric was thin and well-used) and returned with one that would fit him. “I have a friend here in the South, who has been approved to take in drifters, so long as they are Nykan-born. Show her your papers, mention my name, and you will have a bed for sleeping.” She draped the robe over one arm instead of opening it, inviting him to take whatever time he required in the cooling and now filthy water. This time, she opted to stand. “When you are ready, I’ll show to you a bed. If you like, I might find some bread in the kitchen, but you’re welcome to a piece of the morning ration, too. It’ll be fresher.” After a beat, she remembered, “I’m Ren, by the way.” Then she let him say his piece. She was tired, but that only made her quiet. She was as attentive and kind as ever, and equally patient as she lead him by candlelight into a small hall full of beds and sleeping bodies. As soon as he seemed well situated, she put out the light and tiptoed away in darkness. If he was not roused by the soft commotion of waking bodies that morning, then the small, windowless hall would not grant him the light of dawn. The Old Man would be allowed to rest, to rise in his own time, mentioned occasionally to make sure he still lived. Sometime before he woke, a bundle of food was set at the foot of his bed, placed carefully atop a neatly folded change of clothes. On his bedside table was placed a vellum scroll wrapped in twine, with a small note attached. He would recognize the shielding glyph from the previous evening’s conversation, but the note was new. In it were scrawled two words in even, practiced script: Stay Curious.

[Ezra Crenshaw]

It was tight in the Flaxen District the next morning, technically it was tight in all of Nyka. The buildings seemed to be built on top of one another, fitting together like a toddler fixing a jigsaw puzzle. The streets had been reduced to little more than back alleyways with a dead end at every turn and the rooftops formed a sea of red brick stretching as far as the eyes could reach. In a few bells, the streets would fill with people and traders though most businesses had moved to the Fourth Day Market, a place Ezra made a mental note to check out later. The stalls would brandish their favorite ‘no foreigners allowed’ signs and the monks would take to breaking up or starting fights at their leisure. The district itself had a motley assortment of patrons, mostly due to the clientele at the Theater or the slavers ushering in fresh meat. Skerr’s monks would disperse through the massive city, distributing daily rations to the citizens and the day would start anew. Ezra had stopped on his way to the pier, intent on finding work while it was quiet enough to do so. He didn’t want to arouse suspicion from the local slave trade, though he doubted they’d be interested in a fifty year old man. ‘No sense riskin’ it,’ he thought as he set down his fishing tackle to flip through stray pages at the Post. The Eastern District’s bulletin board advertised jobs mostly for the Flaxen District but there was on occasion alternate opportunities for work in other fields. Then he found what he was looking for. Attention, if you have knowledge of basic first aid the Grand Infirmary is looking to hire. It was no secret that the Nykan people were constantly in need of medical attention and so the Infirmary was always looking for help. If it wasn’t monsters crawling out of the Aperture, it was fist fights they got into the night before. If it wasn't foreigners getting picked on, it was slavers getting bloodied in pointless infighting. Or worse. Satisfied, Ezra bent down to pick up his father’s fishing pole but stopped when he noticed the latch wasn’t fastened. “There’s a accident waitin’ to happen, Goddess,” he muttered as he bent down to inspect the brass fastener. He clicked the thing open and close a few times but it still didn’t seem to look right. Opening the case up he found her note. Stay Curious As he reapplied the pile of gauze to cover himself up in the early morning, he found the note affixed by a little bow to the scroll she had shown him when they first met. He had tucked it into his father’s kit for safekeeping but now it seemed to be interrupting the closing mechanism. Their last verbal correspondence ended on such a somber note. She had confessed what would be considered blasphemy in any other circle. Nykans weren’t allowed to talk much about the other Gods let alone suggest an ‘in-between’ source. He must have appeared visibly shocked because she turned away when he opened his mouth. “I will,” was all he had managed. He was shocked, and also a bit relieved. The proprietor of the Nine Staves introduced herself as Ren and suggested a friend who could help him settle in, but he couldn’t get over the intimate philosophy she had offered to a battered and begging man without batting an eye. A familiar pit in his stomach burned with impassioned Nykan fury but quickly died out. He was a friend to the Alvina no longer. And in truth, he agreed with Ren. Though Ezra Crenshaw was saved by the blessings of a Goddess, it wasn’t the only thing that had seen him through the long darkness. Her light was but the first beacon leading him to his fate, it was by chance, by destiny, by the in-between that he had survived exile. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it. In the morning he woke to find her memento, he could smell the fragrance of the Nine Staves in the change of clothes she had provided and the chunk of bread felt hard, as advertised. A smile tickled the corners of his lips and as he unfolded the note, it turned into a grin. Several leaflets of paper sat atop the desk at the entrance to the Nine Staves, two Laats fastened the parchment in place. It read : On a ripped piece of parchment : Time enough for one last story I think, that’s currency of the ‘in-between’ if you catch my meaning. Once there was a brave man of the sea, picked up from his village when he was but a pup and taken to serve the navy for a while. The man was scared, but by the hand of the Alvinas, he survived. Made officer at the cost of many other boys lives. The things he’d seen weighed on him, enough to make a tall man short. But after nine long years, the boy was sent home. The trip was long over the countryside, for there weren’t no roads. No, it was dangerous but at its slowest he could make the trip in three days time. He was sent home with five days worth of rations and his sword (just in case) and nothin’ else. So he went home and that was okay. On the first day, man cross ways with a beggar. An’ the beggar gave him a kindly smile and asked if’n he had some food. The brave man was a good man, so he gave the beggar a days ration and he himself took one. The two made quite the pair and they laughed and ate of the meal, good. The next day the man cross a ways with a minstrel, and the dancing man performed such a jig that he felt the Alvinas themselves might be partial to move. The bard said, ‘hey friend, how bout some coin for the dance.’ And the brave man said he was broke but offered the bard a daily ration and ate one himself. And that was ok. The two were peas in a pod and they danced and sang until the night. On the last day, the brave man happened upon a wounded soldier. The soldier begged sanctuary, and the man took pity on him. But, what could he do? He had but one bit of ration left, so he went and broke the bit in half. Prepared to share it with the wounded man. And as he went to give half to the soldier, who’s wound was growing ever fatal, he couldn’t forget the beggar and the bard. And so he handed the man his sword as well as both halves. He made it home that day to find his house under foreclosure and his wife taken by slavers. Frantic the man begged the Alvinas help but none came. He went to the den of thieves only to get a black eye for his trouble. He went to the palace to plead for his home only to be levied a fine. In the weeks that passed he found himself on the streets, begging for whatever he could get. At wits end he sought sanctuary. He came to the door of a long forgotten church and he banged, banged on the door with the last of his strength. On the other side of the door sat the beggar, the bard and the bandaged man; all thanking the Goddess of the Journey. When they saw their friend they rushed to his aid. The bandaged man fought the slavers and rescued the brave man’s wife, the bard pleaded with the palace and persuaded them to give the man back his house, and the beggar begged the Alvinas to grant mercy to the poor beaten man. And it was all so. The four lived out the rest of their days. The beggar, the bard, the bandaged and the brave. You see, Sanctuary has those very words scribed from this’ere glyph : Touch and Speak Help. And to do so will save a man’s life. But friendship is worth more than sanctuary. It’s worth a bit of me and a bit of you. PS Forgive me, ma’am for I can’t take the clothes. I want to but I’m afraid they are above my station. And that was all that was written in the letter. All except for one thing : The Journey of the in-between starts with you. Sincerely, Ezra Crenshaw

[Liar]

EXPERIENCE AWARD Ezra Crenshaw Skill Points Storytelling 5 Philosophy 4 Politics 2 Persuasion 1 Observation 1 Lore The Power in the In-Between Starting Again Connection: Ren of the Nine Staves Items Shielding Glyph on a Scroll; touching the glyph’s center and saying the word Help will envelop the user in a skin-tight shield that is impermeable to magic cast by up to Expert users and weapons wielded by up to Competent users. Effect lasts two hours. Notes I thoroughly enjoyed writing with you on this one. :) Pleasure doing business. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.