Justice (the paladin) getting to know Mercy -- Weirdlet
[AN: Calls back to Made With Feeling ]
A wandering Paladin is not entirely commonplace, but they are a possibility. Usually before they adopt a pack of Adventurers for reasons that quickly become obvious, the more you know about Adventurers. The same holds true for a wandering Hellkin.
A wandering Hellkin Paladin asks and answers a lot of questions. One that remains unanswered to many is, Why would a god welcome a Hellkin as their Paladin?
That question is twice as baffling when the Hellkin Paladin is sworn to Tyr, the god of law.
Justice would roll her eyes when anyone asked, and sigh, "And justice. He's the god of law and justice. Too many people forget that." If they continued asking questions about it, she'd give them the two-hour lecture on how justice was a far more noble pursuit than law because men could make unjust laws all the time. Which included the tale of Rendistwyne, the city that outlawed hunger, and then suffered a drought-induced famine. The key point was that the punishment for the crime of hunger was death. That, in combination with their aggressively-closed borders, doomed the entire city/state.
After Rendistwyne ate the horses, dogs, cats, rats, and mice, they ate the corpses of the criminals. According to the journals discovered after it all went bad, the last Rendistwynian journaled the chain of misery. Right up to their plans to end themself for their criminal activity.
They were the lord of the land, and could not go back on their decisions. Their last meal was their pride. Chased with a vial of acid.
Rendistwyne's enemies found out only after the runes on the city-state's automatic defences gave out.
And if the questioner still insisted on arguing about it, Justice would treat them to visions of the horrors they found in Rendistwyne's ruins. Recorded for posterity as a lesson to all. They usually shut up after the scene with the infant skeleton in a cauldron.
With people like that, it's no shock at all that Paladins are naturally grumpy. Especially when fellow Paladins of Tyr doubted that she was one of them, demanding that she repeat her oath. Over, and over, and over again.
She was seething by the time she went shopping for further supplies. Tetchy at the following Officer of the Watch. Fuming at the immediate notice won by other Officers of the Watch as she passed through their beat, and how many of them were in the local Hellkin ghetto.
Justice felt an entirely natural rage when she witnessed an Officer trip a Hellkin child, and then announce that they were arresting the child for assaulting an officer. She was very ready to enact some extreme justice on an obvious bigot, and she had the cursed sword to do it.
That was the moment that a bard on the street-corner added some magic to their tune. A calming magic to reduce the heated feelings in the area. There was a very poetic plea for kindness, and how the entire situation demanded mercy rather than violence.
The Officers were swayed, and Justice put her cursed sword away. The child went running for her mother, and the Bard breathed a sigh of relief.
Justice went to talk to them. "Interesting trick," she said. "You're lucky the Watch doesn't arrest you for interfering with their duties."
"Name's Mercy," said Mercy. "And my calming song includes myself in the list of folks needing my namesake. So far, it's working."
"So far," echoed Justice, who introduced herself in turn. The two butted heads ceremoniously[1]. "Will the people here be safe if you take a newcomer to see the sights?"
"My song's good for the rest of the day, but it needs an inciting incident to really work. I should thank you for that with a drink."
"I thought Hellkin weren't allowed to indulge in alcohol in this place," Justice could feel the covert rebellion in that offer. She approved, but wouldn't say out loud where a Watch Officer could hear her.
"Oh, I mean soft drinks of course," lied Mercy. "Allow me to guide you to the best Soda Jerks in the ghetto."
Of course it was a speakeasy, but Justice had a ginger ale anyway. A rather potent ginger ale. Which also helped her feel a great deal better about her day.
It also helped them all plot the inevitable revolution against the unjust lawmakers.
[1] Hellkin greet each other with a brief press of brow to brow, regardless of the placement of their horns. Toddlers and small children are a lot more enthusiastic about their head-butting instinct.
[Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash]
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