Twisted Emulation and Insomniac Regret
“Our allies will not arrive in time to reinforce us. The Cyrans will be upon our position in two days.”
Commander Iura Josan stood at the end of the war table, looking over the pieces on the board contemplatively. C4-P9-S3-Q2-OR6, or “Calm” as Iura had nicknamed it, stood at the other end of the tent, guarding the closed entrance with poleaxe at the ready. He flicked his gaze up to look at the undead soldier. “What do you make of this?”
Normally, an Odakyr Rites undead only responded when spoken too, barring the need for clarification in orders. It was common to hear one ask for permission to use lethal force. However, Iura Josan had been keeping his eyes on this one, this curious one, who did not behave the same way as the others, Calm. The skeleton was impassive, making absolutely no movement. Even when it responded, it had no need to move its jaw as the sound emanated through a magical enchantment.
“The Cyrans will surely attack us. To them, we must seem an easy target.”
Iura Josan did not externally react, continuing to look over his map. Internally though, he marveled at the strange response. “Us,” “we,” such language was never used by the Odakyr Rites undead to refer to both themselves and the living. It was far too familiar for those detached dead, who existed only to be ordered around and to serve Karrnath. Additionally, crucially, it had just given a tactical opinion.
This strange one, this Calm one, was clearly just pretending to be like the others. It didn’t realize it had messed up.
Dagne hated the evenings. Those empty hours where everyone slept, and even Vaeren was in their trance. The times where their own thoughts could not be externalized, could not be distracted from. They had to endure these hours for so long. It was all the more painful now that they could remember sleeping and awakening to feel refreshed.
Still, it was better now than it ever had been. Back in the military, almost all their time was empty. They had never been expected to do anything except stand around and occasionally fight. An undead soldier was just a weapon. They were finally living now, most of their hours filled with activity.
They were trying to read, but the book was not capturing their attention, and it was a difficult one besides. After a while, they just set it down in frustration and returned to their own mind, attending to memories and anxieties. They kept returning to the war. Most of all, they thought about Iura Josan, his strange affection and his icy cruelty. They hated him.
“Come,” Iura Josan said, gesturing to the empty seat, “play me.”
Calm stared down at the Conquerer set, unflinching. Iura Josan’s face was warm, but he put up expressions like they were masks. “Orders: guard the commander,” Calm replied. Iura smiled, “this will not interfere with that. I am quite safe besides. Play me.” With the assurance, the undead sat in the chair, leaning the poleaxe against the seat back in easy reach. He quietly made a standard opening move, watching for its response. A moment later, the undead did respond. The move was not the proper counter, but it also wasn’t random. Clearly the undead soldier had some understanding of the game’s rules already.
In a few more moves passed in silence, it was clear that the skeleton did not know much about Conquerer strategies. Perhaps whoever it had been in life had not been an avid player. That was of little importance though.
It was the only Odakyr Rites undead that Iura Josan had ever encountered that played at all.
Of course he easily defeated it, systemically capturing its pieces and reducing it to a worse and worse situation until finally it had no more recourse. At the end of the game, Iura asked, “how was the game?” “You played well, commander.” “Thank you, Calm. You may return to your post.” Wordlessly, Calm rose, retrieved its poleaxe, and returned to the tent entrance.
Disappointing, but he didn’t expect the undead to give away its actual thought processes so easily. He didn’t want to probe too deep into this one, and he certainly did not want others to notice his fascination with it. It was his own little curiosity, one which the Ministry of Dead would not be taking away to analyze. They would think it was defective, for its lack of bloodlust. But that was the very property that made Iura Josan feel at ease with it as his guard. The other undead had something unnerving about them, even as they were recognizable as something which was once a person, and Calm seemed to lack it.
They stood up and wandered over to the wall where their armor and poleaxe was mounted. It had been Iura Josan’s sword, armor and poleaxe. There was a time when they believed his ghost had come to haunt them, but it was merely a demon using his face tauntingly. The anger was still there, over that, even if they had beaten the foul creature.
Because it made them ashamed.
Dagne tried so hard to be a leader like him, a great tactician who was able to move people effectively and win. But they weren’t that. They were never that. They had been a pretender.
They took the poleaxe down from the wall and felt the familiar weight in their hands. The poleaxe that they had bonded with Garthir. As if on cue, the weapon send reassurances into their subconscious. The warm familiarity was calming as Dagne worked their way through a set of stances. Low, high, half, and so on. It was unusual for a commander to prefer a polearm. Iura Josan used it for its deadly practicality, favoring it over the sword. Everything always seemed to be about practicality for him. But that wasn’t true.
The axeblade of Calm’s weapon rested against the prisoner’s neck. The mercenary glared up at Commander Iura Josan. He stared down, coldly. “Your refusal to give any information has brought you here. Had you turned over the location of your comrades base, I would have saw fit to spare your miserable life.”
In response, the hobgoblin spit, responding in Goblin, “no kapaa, chaat’oor. I am ghaal’lhurusk. You are just Karrn’taarka.” Immediately, Iura Josan responded in kind, taking on the hobgoblin’s own tongue, “and you are Cyre’s tuuv’daask, taat. Tell me location.” A bit surprised to be addressed in her own tongue and insulted so, the hobgoblin’s ears went flat and her lips turned up into a sneer. “Kuur dor. I seek kurar before kapaa.” “Ban,” Iura Josan said.
He looked up at Calm then, but it already understood. It did not hesitate to raise the axeblade and bring it down, beheading the mercenary.
Iura Josan stared down impassively at the dead prisoner for a moment, then “drag off the body and then retrieve the next. We are running short on time.” This time, Calm hesitated, just for a second, but that instant was long enough for him to catch and make note of. Was the undead soldier uncomfortable? He had always assumed it to merely be indifferent, rather than relishing in slaughter, but if it was actually affected…
He pushed the thought aside. He could follow that line of logic and make further observations at another time. Now, he needed to focus on prying information out of the prisoners. Perhaps a mere foot soldier would be more forthcoming than the mercenary sergeant. Hopefully a mere foot soldier would know the information he needed. And if not, he could have his necromancer speak to the lhursk’s corpse.
Dagne set the poleaxe down on the floor, sitting down. They stared out into the empty night, then, slowly laid out so they were just looking up at the ceiling. Grief was their companion right now. Rather than alleviate their restlessness, going through the practiced drills only reminded them of the past.
Thinking back, Dagne was ashamed of how much they acted like he did when they started adventuring. How they pushed the people around them to change, past the point of comfort and for their own selfish reasons. They had told themselves that they just wanted to help them, but it couldn’t be true. There was always the ulterior motive of wanting to control others’ actions. Even with Vaeren. Their actions disgusted them. They also did Iura Josan proud.
“Do you remember who you were?” Iura Josan asked Calm. The undead reacted physically, just a slight twitch. He stared it down with an unreadable gaze, expecting response, no acceptance for a refusal to speak. “No,” it replied.
He sighed, “pity. I heard you were created of a hero.” This time, there was no reaction. Iura carried on, “of course, I am not supposed to know who your corpse donor was. I will speak no more of it.” Calm made no response, disappointing. He could not blame the undead soldier for being so cautious. Clearly, it was an attempt at self-preservation, to pretend it was something ordinary. The other soldiers were fooled, the other undead were not. Iura Josan noticed how their unintelligible, bloodthirsty and restless whispers would fill the night, and how Calm’s were not among them.
“Spar me,” he ordered, picking up his poleaxe. The weapon was beautiful, blackened metal with a detail of a skull at the center where the axeblade, hammer, and spearpoint met. It was enchanted as well. Calm obliged, taking up stance.
Iura came in aggressively, aiming to knock the undead off balance. However, its feet were planted and it took and hit, responding with a powerful downward strike at his arms. Iura danced aside in time to avoid the disarming blow, then came back in again. Hammer connected with Calm’s exposed femur, cracking it powerfully. He knew it must’ve hurt the undead, but it gave no reaction as it stepped forward, swinging its own weapon and stopping short of Iura’s chestplate. It refused to retaliate. Iura grinned.
“You are skilled indeed to be able to keep up with me, Calm. But you do not want to hurt me,” he said. The skeleton just looked back at him, expressionless as only bone can be, but Iura could swear he sensed a bit of anger. Finally, some indication that it was capable of being enraged. Interesting. Then, it suddenly responded, “orders: protect the commander.” Iura Josan laughed, he couldn’t help it, it was so absurd how this thing was clinging on to the semblance of its facade long after he had seen right through its feeble attempts to hide. Then, his tone turned serious, “we both know you are under no such restriction. You could have landed that blow. You chose not to.”
The undead did not respond to the accusation, of course, but it backed up. Just a half-step, but it did, and that was all the confirmation Iura Josan needed. “Now, can we drop this tiresome pretense between us and finally speak frankly?” The silence lasted for many long moments. The undead knew it was caught, of course, it had known it was caught for a long time. Finally, it responded, “very well.” Iura Josan smiled, “who are you?” “I do not know.” He snorted, annoyed, “not who you were, who you are now.” The undead shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to share. “Tell me,” Iura ordered, all kindness gone from his voice. “I’m Dagne.”
I used some terms from the goblin glossary in Exploring Eberron.
chaat'oor = "defiler," especially a human
ghaal'lhurusk = "strong" + "sergeant"
Karrn'taarka = "Karrnathi" + "wolf," Karrnathi soldiers are called wolves, Karrn would be an import word
tuuv'daask = mercenary, literally "buy" + "soldier"
taat = derogatory term for someone of lesser rank
kuur dor = "speak" + "never"
ban = "sure" or "your funeral"
