A Liar's List

[ADashofHope]

[These pamphlets? Short snippets of prose? Doggerel? Are found around the Well, always in shaded spots.

Fate Crutzher

Ego

The Magistrate stifled a smile from her seat in the Hall of Jurisprudence. Iolaos Myrto-- a man whose misfortune had been to be in the right place at the wrong time-- had spent the last twenty minutes begging on his hands and knees. Twice the amount of time the raiders had made her plead for her own life. After weeks and months of playing the dutiful soldier...at last the time had come to wield the law as it was meant to be used.

Her own personal plaything.

An hour later it was done. The accused was escorted from the city in a daze. His punishment? Irrelevant. His purpose? A stepstool towards loftier titles...Legate, perhaps? Who could say?

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ONION

The Curse

Once upon a time, there was an old wizard with too many books and not enough time to read them all. So to aid him in his labors, he decided to create a few extra hands. He enchanted the books on his shelves, to float out the stacks and open themselves to him. He enchanted his quill, to take notes as he spoke aloud. And then the wizard, after all this busywork, decided to settle in for some lunch.

But the wizard had failed to properly clean his hands, and as he prepared his meal for the day, he accidentally enchanted an onion, which promptly fled its fate in the frying pan and fled the wizard's tower, into the desert. It rolled and rolled and rolled along in the ash, gathering weight, gathering knowledge, rolling rolling rolling

For years

And years

And years

Until the Onion arrived at Ephia's Well and was promptly given a rosecloak by the discerning eyes of the Crimson Stem. The Onion had changed. It had forgotten its humble origins. The ash coating its form had hardened and calcified into a facsimile of arms and legs. It believed itself to be like those around it, and emulated them to exactness-- save for one thing. The Onion could not speak.

Not yet.

Fear the Onion.

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The Fourth Legion

Fire that Walks

Blood and ash and smoke and scorch.

Do the Fourth know more than they're saying about the killer stalking our streets?

They say they piled their dead in the Scald, for fear the dead would walk.

Did they miss one? 

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Lacto Ephenephres

Insanity

"Are you sure?" The street swindler looked confused. Before him were three shells hiding colored stones, and the man in the Lily-white robe's intent was to select the White winner from its Golden comrades. The problem was, this was the swindler's first day, and he really wasn't good at the sleight-of-hand stuff yet.

There was no way the politician could have missed him pocket the white stone, but the man kept paying him for another try...

"Yes. This time I'm going to win."

The swindler couldn't believe his luck.

[close]

Legate Lajane

Transparency

Champion Gilbrekht: We've got him in custody now, Legate. What do you want us to do with him?

Legate Lajane: Did anyone see him animate the dead?

Sergeant Dead-Eye: No Legate. He does have a mark on him, but that's not on the penal-

Legate Veiled: We can fix that. Hold him for a few hours while I call a Scribe to draw up the paperwork...

Legate Lajane: This is the right thing to do.

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Hakem Corinth

Indecision

"The Legate's getting impatient, Hakem. A Spoke needs to go on the Stele."

But which one? The Hakem swiped at his brow and looked around the circle of Speakers. Each of them met his gaze with a smile and a nod. Each of them carried a brutal blade, dull with blood. The brazier at the center of the circle crackled and hissed-- was that a whisper on the wind? Divine intervention?

"It should be /my/ Spoke, then!" The Hakem nodded with this proclamation, his dwarven beard sweeping the sand. The Speakers raised their voice with a cheer, and in the excitement, the Hakem never noticed the assassin closing in on him.

[close]

Vaskr Farsong

Honorable Mention

Never told a lie in his life.

[close]

[ADashofHope]

Tabbah 23rd– the trial of Wischard Landgrave.

Now I admit that I wasn't too familiar with the conjurer and call-freek Landgrave. We had taken a couple of jobs together on the board, and I'm sure his canteen was instrumental in keeping me on this side of the Edutu, but we never shared a drink together, ya get me? I can't claim to know him or his heart, but one thing I do know is camelshit when I smell it. And this trial stank.

So of course it was presided over by Evilrelle Nerdelf, Legate Vellum's prelate and lifemate, and it was prosecuted by a prickly little cluster of greencloaks. Armed with their parchment and self-righteousness, they sentenced a man to a death sentence, without the courage or courtesy to swing the sword themselves.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let me set the stage. Our guilty man claimed to have found a brooking tome of wind– and don't ask me for any details, because said tome was never presented into evidence or even described for the court– and held it. As an Awoken, he had never encountered a djinn before and had little idea the enormity of what he held in his hands. Until of course, he took a priority contract in the company of a Scarab of the Fourth and summoned them forth against a pack of Monolith kobolds.

Ten days passed. The Assembly came and went– one which was noteworthy in that the Fourth Legion were slapped with receiving the lowest amount of the vaunted and admirable Accord. They were told to 'deliver results' if they wanted a bigger cut. And the very next day, Landsgrove was hauled into court to be served up as sacrifice for a sergeant's paycheck.

As for the evidence? Half of the testimony presented was penned and signed the date before– by a Scarab, at that. Hardly unbiased and almost assuredly coached. There was signed testimony from the bluecloaks declaring that the tome (which we were not allowed to see) was used to call forth djinn, but they could not speak to whether or not the accused had actually used it. There was signed testimony from Janissaries declaring that the tome had been found on Landgrave's person after he answered a summons to the Garrison.

This is our master criminal brooker, folks. Meyer's protege– he conjures djinn in Janissary company, answers their summons meekly and even has the good grace to keep the contraband in his back-pocket.

And so he was found guilty. You'd be thinking– he's dead, right? Lionfood.

Nope.

Let's get the boring Izdur bit outta the way, eh? Brooking is defined as "a person found guilty of entering a pace with Djinn, Aberrations, Shades, Devils or Demons." Prelate Longname, by her own admission, stated that 'no pactmark' was found on Landsend in the Astronomers' examination. That, at best, the single instance of summoning at the Monolith caverns may have been the extent of Landsman's sins. That he did not deserve to die.

What this priestess of the Mother did instead was fine him ten thousand dinari and order him to be exiled and stripped of his conjuring freek-tricks. I think I'd rather take the lions, personally. Worth noting that the convicted hasn't been seen since. I'd be real curious to know if the temple of B'aara has received a hefty donation of dinari and goods care of this poor bastard's bag. I'd also be curious if Prelate Faith the Joyless had any hand in proposing the punishment, seeing as how the pair of them were whispering during the final recess.

The Legion likely calls this justice. I call it a lie with paperwork, and that's why this is worth my time. It's worth noting that the man of many nicknames, Sergeant Handsome, was marched up to the Astronomers Mount later that very night, to be tested for brooking by the bluecloaks. Testing was...inconclusive. Questions abound.

I'll leave you with this, dear reader. What's the point of our fancy penal code and our books and pamphlets filled with regulations if any idiot fresh from the sands can pick and choose what needs to be applied from it? Especially when that idiot can condemn another idiot to death for it? What do we gain from compliance, and what do they?

Think on it, and may Gellema smile on these liars true.