A Further Insight Into Ardgan

Merin Morecroft

Merin Morecroft is Ardgan's Head of the Treasury, a ginger tabaxi with bright blue eyes rarely seen without a hooded cloak, ears poking through slits cut for exactly that purpose. They oversee the city's commerce in cottons, fabrics, and textiles - wool most of all - and personally sample one wool ball from every shipment each month to satisfy themself the quality holds up.

Mostly non-verbal, Merin communicates through the changing trim of their robes, each colour and cut signalling a different mood, and answers any yes-or-no question by doubling it: "yes yes" or "no no." Beneath the formality, they're something of a prankster, known to leave stray fur balls tucked in the desks of fellow councillors. They are a firm supporter of the Gronan League.

In public settings, Merin can usually be found with a choffee - a chocolate-coffee blend from Veridia's outskirts - people-watching and quietly humming along to whatever live music happens to be playing. They're most often alone, though sometimes seen with a companion who looks different every time; this is, in fact, Silu.

Merin's precision with gold traces back to a single childhood tragedy. Travelling with their wealthy family atop an Elephant Warg en route to the Hegelian Empire, they were stopped by highway robbers demanding gold. Their parents came up short, and were killed for it. Merin has never let a count come up wrong since.

They keep a pet crow, Prue, who once nested outside the family home and grew fascinated by their gold, eventually bringing them shiny trinkets of her own. Prue may or may not be a demon - possibly a cursed imp who genuinely wants to be good - bound in service to Barrelez'barrina, who no one seems to have any real knowledge of, yet who has a habit of surfacing in the minds of free-thinking people exactly when needed.

On vacation, Merin travels to Chuna'waqaba, a Gronan island nation home to humanoid crabs (its elders growing to enormous size, shells and all) and famous for the best sushi in the world, hand-picked for each visitor based on their vibe. Merin eats their fill every time, despite a well-known case of a Drelidin couple who once died from overindulging, and enjoys sushi crawls and rounds of crugby with the locals between meals.

Patrick

Patrick is a human butcher, and by his own quiet reputation, the finest in the world - he can filet a fish in under three seconds and has the scars to prove a lifetime spent with a blade in hand. In his late forties, he has swooping ginger hair long past his shoulders, and a single scar runs the length of his torso from right hip to left nipple. His spirit animal is a bloodhound named Hilo.

He keeps a working relationship with Leana Thromburt; when her pigeons grow too old to fly, they find their way to his counter. Ardgan's poorer citizens rely on him for the gamier cuts, good for stretching into stews, and Patrick keeps his prices within reach of anyone who needs them. Whatever is left unsold at the end of the day is given away to the city's homeless rather than thrown out.

His generosity is not incidental. Patrick grew up in Gharvabahd, a Hegelian city in Veridia that fell to Gronan forces during his childhood. Hegelians were treated as second-class citizens under the occupation, and Patrick watched his own sister starve. His family learned to waste nothing - not a scrap of meat, not a moment of food - and that lesson has shaped every choice he has made since, from his prices to the string of apprentices he takes on so the trade, and its values, survive him.

His home is unremarkable from the outside: no garden, nothing showy. Inside, it is cluttered with small trinkets gathered from the many places, and people, his life has crossed paths with.

Patriarch Emil Grimawich

Emil Grimawich is the Hegelian Patriarch of Ardgan, head of the Hegelian church within the city and, through the priests he keeps close, one half of the Hegelian voice on the council. He looks every inch the austere cleric: a beard unkempt and nearly reaching his knees, a wiry frame, and sharp grey eyes that miss very little. A grey raven rides permanently on one shoulder.

Two decades ago he fell out with the Sareena of the Hegelian Empire and was banished from the Imperial Court. Ardgan gave him a second life. He rebuilt his standing within the church here as something of a mild heretic, and today stands among the most powerful Hegelian figures in the city.

Politically, Emil holds two convictions above all others. The first: that the city's human population deserves food, housing, and access to spiritual life. The second, held with real ferocity: that magic must remain arcane and divine, untouched by Gronan science and alchemy. He regards Gronan magic as a desecration, one he believes will ruin the world given time, and is known to gather his priests for public burnings of magical items and Gronan devices alike.

He has also died twenty-three times, and been resurrected twenty-three times, most recently drowned in Ardgan's main river. His deaths are reported as a semi-regular column in the local paper, and inspired one of Silu's plays: How Many Times Will I Die, in which Emil dies over a thousand times across a single hour of performance.

Emil is an admirer, from a distance, of Laka'chantu - a fellow practitioner of "pure" magic he has never once managed to actually meet.

Privately, Emil practises taxidermy - specifically of obscure creatures, worked on in his own basement. Word travels through the undercity and the seedier taverns that a man in Ardgan will pay well for strange kills, the stranger the creature, the higher the price, and mount them into small, faintly indecent dioramas.

Publicly, the Patriarch funds a wide net of charities across the city, mostly for Ardgan's human population, though a handful quietly support non-humans as well - support he never advertises. Among them is The Journiers Ward, a hospital dedicated to treating adventurers for the specific, unusual injuries their trade tends to leave behind.

Into Demivere

Mr Strauss leads Rae and Damthus through the opulent corridors of Demivere, one of the capital Gronan city-states. Everything here feels deliberate, wealthy, and entirely removed from the Ardgan.

Damthus taps one of the passing staff on the shoulder, exchanges a few quiet words, and slips into her shape. In her borrowed form, he presses Strauss for their destination.

Strauss answers plainly enough: they are heading to see someone named Kendel.

Damthus adds a request - they will need healing first.

Introducing Kendel IV

They are brought to Kendel IV, found in a lecture hall. He is a cheerful presence, pale-haired, amethyst-eyed, with long pointed ears, and greets the interruption with warmth.

He leads them down a flight of stairs into a medbay, where Rae and Damthus are healed using magical infused devices. When Damthus asks for supplies on top of the healing, the staff provide generously, without hesitation.

Damthus asks for a moment alone with Kendel IV, and uses it to draw out his history - enough, at least, to understand the shape of the man. Then, with a distraction to cover it, he knocks Kendel out cold and takes his form.

Posing as Kendel IV, Damthus posts a man named Jarden on the door to guard it, promising a promotion if he does well, and returns to the medbay. While he settles into the disguise, Rae quietly studies the workers moving through the space, and concludes they are not slaves and are working entirely voluntarily.

Kendel Prime

As "Kendel IV," Damthus requests that Strauss take them further, down to Kendel Prime.

A magical lift carries them down, and down, and down again, into a far less polished part of the underground network - a vast open space filled with row upon row of research tables.

Kendel Prime is there, deep in his work. He asks after Strauss' companions, curious about them. Rae refuses to give him anything until Sophia is returned to her.

Kendel takes Rae down a side corridor, leaving "Kendel IV" behind among the tables, and brings her to a classroom - where Sophia is working, and does not recognise Rae at all.

Rae demands to know why. Kendel explains, simply, that it is easier for Sophia this way, easier for her to forget. He promises he'll explain everything, and the three of them - Rae, Sophia, and Kendel - head back toward the main area.

By the time they arrive, Damthus has already set fire to every table in the room.

What Demivere Is For

Kendel finally recognises Damthus for who he is beneath the disguise and offers a compliment on his work against Lord Falinsky. Damthus tells him the praise won't save him.

They're led onward, to a large chamber lined with canisters - and inside them, trapped, are Fey creatures unlike anything in the natural world: a Frog Buffalo, a Butterfly Eagle, a Jackrabbit Hamster. Strange, foreign-looking devices hum around them.

Kendel explains it without shame. The Fey are being used to understand the arcane, to fuel his research - into how to win the war. The children do the actual research work - chosen, Kendel says, because their hearts are pure enough for it.

Rae moves toward the canisters and is struck by a wave of migraine and screaming in her skull. Furious and in pain, she grabs Kendel by the collar and hits him, demanding her wife back and demanding the Fey be released.

Kendel insists they need this to win the war. Rae doesn't care. Disgusted that children are being used this way, she keeps hold of him as he tries - under the pretence of "returning" Sophia - to wipe their memories of him.

Confused and hurting, Damthus hurls a dagger at one of the canisters. The screaming in his head only grows louder as the Fey being tortured inside twists into the shape of a small boy.

Rae grabs the small figure too, demanding of Sophia who he is, and slams Kendel against the door. Kendel offers up Lucius' name as a bargaining chip; Rae doesn't care about that either, and cuts one of his long pointed ears down into a rounded, human shape.

Kendel surrenders. He frees Sophia's mind, who then runs to Rae, confused but present. Rae orders him to release the Fey, and he does, working the terminal himself.

They flee the chamber as the canisters open - the sound of the freed creatures, screaming in pain and rage, chasing them out.

Back in the classroom, Kendel agrees to free the other children too, once they've been safely returned home, alongside Rae, Damthus, and Sophia.

Father and Son Reunited

Damthus asks for Lucius, certain he's behind all of it.

They're brought to a room. Damthus kicks the door open to find Lucius simply seated, calm, with the mechanical boy resting in a bed opposite him. Damthus advances with daggers drawn.

Lucius doesn't resist. He accepts what's coming, apologising for his failures as a father. "I'm proud of you, son."

Damthus denies him the word outright - refuses to be his son - and demands to know why Lucius tore the clan meeting apart, and hurt the people Damthus loves.

It's Kendel, following behind, who answers instead: the attack at the meeting wasn't Lucius. It was Thromley Stram, working with Kendel IX, retaliating against the Clans for the chaos they'd been causing across the city.

Lucius accepts that he will die tonight, by his son's hand. He confesses that the mechanical boy was meant to be an heir for the clan, and offers him to Damthus, if he wants him.

Damthus wants nothing to do with either of them.

He raises his blade and stops it a hair's width from Lucius' throat. In the end, Lucius isn't worth it.

They leave him there, watching them go.