Icarus's blog: "Augurs, Martyrs, and Agnostics"

The mercenary had forgotten flight as he surveyed the forest that suddenly collapsed into dimly lit city.

Little shacks and ramshackle lean-to farms seemed to just lurch from the cool tilled dirt under the lamps and shards of unnatural light hanging from crooked poles and rusty lengths of chain or old twine like strands of some blind, drunk spider stumbling into overnight civilization.

Only this tepid yellow light bore into outsiders' eyes like some cold irrate and pulsing sun, one grew accustomed to the faint hum after a few hours, but the light itself would cause headaches and a dissorientation of day and night even among the locals.

At the heart of the city, among the temples, tradesmen, and bustle, there was always a meandering life to the cobbled streets. Peddlers, venders, bleary eyed locals all unsure of why they couldn't sleep, and all coming to the consensus that business may as well resume.

Maybe they'd just take a light stroll through the gardens, make an offering, buy some bread, get some coffee... they were up anyway.

But the people... they were known to be a bit... off.

Dark circles under their eyes, the gentle sway of someone standing on their last legs, or the sudden pops and snaps of rage one gets from a lifetime without a good night's sleep. A condition they called "sleeping sickness", either not getting enough, or catching it suddenly while performing hazardous labor.

The insomnia probably didn't help much with the anxiety of having an ever watchful, ever smiteful deity looking over your shoulder.

But the miracle of light, and the ever expanding life and contained prosperity of this place seemed to be enough for these people.

Was there more to the trance than fear and exhaustion?

Was Dyroneus more than a small child with a lens over an anthill?

The mercenary tapped on a few doors, but only to hear the occasional surly snore interrupted, on the fourth house a window flew open and a dirty, bristly full-faced man barked in impolite colloquialisms (that I won't repeat, there might be children or ladies reading) to get off his lord's property, and get through town while they were still under curfew

"But this city has never slept-"

"an it don't!" and the rather unpleasant, unshaven farmer slammed his shutters shut and the mercenary presumed the conversation had terminated, but he was promptly greeted at the farmer's door by the same man, now revealed to be quite alarmingly stout, and a whole foot shorter with a ludicrous sidestepping gait.

Another wonderous sacrifice from the "miracle of light".

His extremeties were clumpy with his fingers being too short, and his wrists too thick, his chest was nearly two hug's worth, his legs bowed like a thin plank about to snap under its load, and his skin was splotchy from irregular splatters of bruises the mercenary first mistook for unwashed dirt.

"I take it you were born here?"

The farmer placed his gnarled fingers on the mercenary and drug him into his home.

"What are you doing here? You the one what was sent for?"

The mercenary stroked his neck pensively. This detour was about to get unpleasantly complicated.

He could either lie and tell him yes, he was one of the dozen or so soldiers, shamans, or assassins hired to "solve the problem" roll the poor sap for some provisions and duck out of town.

Or he could tell the truth and duck out of town.

"May I sit?" The mercenary plopped down on a small, peg-legged unsanded stool across from the farmer with a small unsanded, peg-legged table between them. "I'll be honest-"

Nothing good ever started with that phrase

"- I'm not here for Dyroneus, the plague, the fugue, or the crops. Whatever problem you people have this season is beyond my interest, or my resources"

"so you've vacationed in our humble blight before?"

"Aye, and your lord wasn't terribly pleased about it either time. Once to train a disasterous insurrection, once as a pikeman, more times than I can recall to dodge contract, but never as a medicine man, missionary, or hope-peddling robed thief, I assure you"

The farmer chuckled.

"Was a fair share of those, but that lot got sorted, and I don't imagine they'll return in my age- crucified the last 'emissaries of faith'. Fifty of them. Burned slowly just to hear em scream. Stunk for weeks, now I can't even smoke ham without gagging..."

"I heard. He shipped the broiled bodies back to their home-churches and missions. Depends on the pub, but they say he tacked a little quip, or shipped his own scriptures along with them, either as a challenge, or a warning."

"I think it was some sick joke... I think this all is. Every day I wake up and its night. I till my fields, I drink my water, I break my back, and its always night. They take my son, the sleep takes my wife, and its always night..."

The farmer placed his nubby hands over his eyes and sighed deep.

"They tried to leave again didn't they?"

"Torched a whole quarter of the city, but the ash from all the bodies made for rich soil, and the threat of it happening again made cowards of rebels, farmers of learned men"

"I thought you were a bit sharper than the average fare here" the mercenary said with a smirk.

"Aye. Used to teach. Used to read. Dyroneus didn't see the need for what he called 'unholy script'. Now no one reads, they get read to. Poems start fires now not conversations. No need to rebuild the schools, the libraries- just plow. Shut up. Pray. Plow. Every time I work this soiled earth I go a little more mad, I know whats under it, I know what's stuck under my nails, crawling up my arms, I knew every face, child, woman, man that burned that day, I read half the books in those libraries, and now I shovel shit over knowledge and cindered souls wailing in my yard".

The farmer shuddered, and dug into his arms, pawing at the faded dirt on his body.

The mercenary realised he must wash repeatedly every day and still feel that wretched ilk worming under his skin.

He felt a twinge in kind running up his sword-arm. For some it gets easier with time, for others it gets worse.