Travelogue 8 — An Audience with the Masrhaless
The guard escorted us through the bazaar streets at a brisk pace that we could hardly match. He dribbled the ambulant sellers, the customers, the beggars, and the occasional goat with nonchalance while we bumped into every one of them.
After our umpteenth “we are sorry!” we reached a tower in the (I assume) center of the Bazaar. The guards’ tower was tall and round, like a large steeple. The building started from the floor below, passed through a hole in the pavement, and went up through a roof window, leaving a gap between the walls and the ground. A short bridge crossed the “moat” to the main entrance. There, a queue of people was waiting for an audience: they were from all races and cultures, but many were impatient dwarves holding misbehaving goats.
We went to another entrance, passing a wall covered in posters of wanted criminals, from murderers to fraudsters, and reached a second guarded door.
Our guide spoke to the bridge guard, and we entered. We climbed the spiral staircase to a room full of dwarven women writing on books, feeding papers into cubic contraptions, cataloging vials, and putting them into boxes. The guard who led us there talked to one of these scribes and, after a quick back and forth, asked us to wait near a door.
The wait was short. After a couple of minutes, an angry triton erupted from the door: he was cruising in some language, holding a baby goat in his hands. The triton was shaking the poor animal up and down and back and forth while gesturing furiously to stress his discontent. From the room, an imposing voice responded in tone and surpassed the volume, eventually shutting up the man. The scribes, accustomed to such scenes, made the livid but quiet trion sit on a pillow to, I imagine, take a deposition or something similar. The baby goat bleated anxious to say its part.
The guard entered, announced us, and then disappeared down the staircase without a goodbye.
The Marshaless was at her desk wearing a heavy cloak and a veil of metal coins topped by a coronet: uncomfortable but mandatory symbols of her authority. She spoke a decent infernal and asked us why we were there. Lord Neberius had a speech ready, starting with the retelling of the incident and culminating in an almost lyrical appeal to the sense of justice of the dwarven people (I know that because it mumbled it all the way here).
But just after he told what happened, when the viscount’s passion was firing up his tirade against sin and treachery, he was stopped by the Marshaless. She knew exactly who the would-be thief was, he was already on a watch list, and his capture was a matter of days, if not hours. We were almost disappointed: even if it was what we hoped she would say, it happened so quickly. Sure, she could be overselling it but she seems to believe it.
Lord Neberius recovered from the unexpected answer and praised the Marshaless: infernals may be eager to punish the wicked but are also prompt to acknowledge the righteous and virtuous, such zeal in dealing with injustice is an admirable trait. The viscount stood up and bowed slightly, asking with a delicate movement her hand to kiss. I couldn’t see her face under her metal veil but I’m sure she blushed in delight as the Lord gave a gentle peck on the back of her hand.
She asked if there was anyone else waiting with us and when we said no she barked some orders to the scribes in the other room, so loud there was no need to open the door. “would you like to keep me company for a minute or two? I just need a break”. As one of the scribes entered with a bottle, a jug, and four glasses on a tray, we knew we could not say no.
“You infernals are a pain in the ass most of the time but you are some of the few people that appreciate my job”.
She poured us the drinks: as the water hit the liquor the drink became milky white. It was much stronger than the one we had from the bazaar’s seller, and much more cold. I’m still quite amazed by the effort people here spent to refresh and refrigerate drinks, but I guess I haven’t experienced a scorching day yet.
Lord Neberius and the Marshaless exchanged compliments and niceties. The saying goes that Infernals and Dwarves do good business together because they both love contracts, and there is something true about that, a sort of reverence for the letter of the law.
“but people here are just so… sloppy,” she said, sipping under the veil. She replaced her aunt who, in her words, “went soft”. The marshaless was from the family branch that still resided in Uxali and there the “whatever, get over it” attitude of Mizanian doesn’t fly. People here have this impression that “everything will turn out fine” just because they have a Goddess as mayor.
Clearly, the Marshaless needed to vent, and the viscount knew how to give her the opportunity: “What’s up with all the goats?” The dwarven lady explained more and more agitated that someone was magically messing with the animals, like someone was staging a “goat uprising”, turning them against their owners. There are many goats in the bazaar, mostly of the “iron belly” kind, because they eat trash and help keep the place clean. But probably some “weirdos” (her word) from the Confederacy think that is beneath them (them being the goats). She has her eyes on some “crazy druid cultists”: as the festival is approaching, many “wackos” (again, her word) flock to the city to make a mess.
She noted we were intrigued by the wanted poster on the wall and she took the chance to list the thorns on her side. “The halfling there, Scramble Face, is a gift my dear Aunt bequeathed me. He is the leader of a cutpurse ring: probably your assailant was one of his men.”
“The other is more of a city-wide problem. One-Eyed Tom, the cat guy, is a thief of magic objects and artifacts, all very high-end stuff, there have been a couple of robberies here that could be his fault”.
“The gnome lady, nicknamed Pyrita, is an illusionist who has passed on fake gold in every tavern of the city. She can make her illusionary coins last two days before they disappear and they can fool a lot of wizards”.
“The real thorn in the city is the Black Scarab, a khepri mob boss that has a hand in any illegal aspect of Mizani. Probably he has some crazy powerful precognition talent because he is always a step ahead of the guards, even the Gray Warden”.
We were all quite intrigued by this colorful gallery of miscreants and we wanted to know more about the Grey Wardens and the other guards, but someone knocked at the door. From the loud belating and the exhausted expression we got what was all about and we quickly got out the marshaless’ hair. She gave us a kind goodbye before assaulting the incoming dwarf and his goat with some unnerved shouts.
We quickly exited the tower. It was afternoon and we hadn’t a proper lunch, so Lord Neberius asked me to find some nice place in Lord Aspis Guide. While I looked for a tavern I had the feeling someone was watching me, I was surely influenced by all that talking about crime.
