The man hesitates, but at the sight of the food and drink an almost audible growl comes from his stomach. He accepts the stuff happily and eats almost ferociously - though Steeple and Heldric note that he very carefully ensures that not a crumb goes to waste.
"They're in the streets, like me. We never made much money in the mines to start with, but after It was closed down we couldn't do nothing for work. We have families to feed, we couldn't just do nothing. When the attacks started, most of us started hiring ourselves out to the merchant caravans as guards against the bandits, but the monsters..."
For a second, the man stops stuffing himself and look Steeple grimly in the eye. He swallows his food:
"They were almost as bad as whatever's in that mine."
Raising a big mug of the tavern's house special in Steeple's direction, he goes on - "It's a hell of a world to live in right now."
Downing half the mug, the man goes back to his food. Thin as he is, he's undoubtedly stuffed - but he keeps on eating. Heldric understands - he doesn't know where his next meal will come from, if it comes at all.
"Not many of us left now. Most are dead, some are crippled, a lucky few like me are out begging in the streets or working the jobs normally given to children for the change to drink ourselves out of this."
Steeple sees Nadia holds her hands to her heart, she's clearly at least partly moved by his story.
"Kasimierz? The poor man, he was good to us. He always promised he would drive the evil from the mines, would give us food and drink or help heal our wounds with the help of his two aides. One day he went down into the mines alone to drive the evil from it. We stood at the entrance to the mine as he went, we prayed for his success. If you'd been there, you would understand the evil that holds that place in its grip - he went down and the earth shook, the demon was not stayed by his righteous strength for an instant. He screamed briefly, some curse laid on the creature, and then we heard nothing more. He went down months ago, no trace of him has been seen since. His two aides still pray for his return at the abbey."
Steeple is dismayed - Kasimierz was a powerful elder of the Capadocian clan. Prodigiously difficult to destroy, possessed of extreme faith and lords of the dead, the clan was among those most feared in the Cainite world. Even the Warlocks don't possess nearly so thorough a mastery of spirits as the capadocians. What could destroy one such as him?
He recognizes the two aides mentioned in the man's story - Kasimierz had two ghouls, monks at his abbey. Perhaps they could be useful to him.
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Topic: Steeple and Heldric - Pillars of Salt (Read 238292 times)