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“Oh, there’s always a choice. Choice is a constant.” Flinn grinned, a cold glint in his eye. “It’s consequences that vary.”
“Foes attack less often, live less long when they do, and increasingly are joining the economy as labor rather than common-pool resources. Hoards are rarer and have significantly less loot,
“You know, saying ‘no offense’ doesn’t count for much after saying something really offensive.”
“First ye need someone to find a monster with loot, and they stake a claim on its lair. Then they issue a quest to kill the monster. Then they sell off shares of their claim to investors and use the money to hire heroes to come and kill the beast. And then they split up the loot based on who owns what stake in the hoard. That’s the job. That’s all it is.
The brothers of the Order of Adchul once famously saved a town from flooding by drafting a cease-and-desist letter to the river.
“And what makes you think that I haven’t seen enough of the world?” Gorm looked up from the contract straight into the priest’s mismatched eyes. “Yer still tryin’ to save it.”
Solamancers, of the Sun, grasp the weft—the powers of fire and water, light and life. Noctomancers, of the Moon, wield the warp of magic—the forces of air and earth, shadow and death. There are many other differences between solamancers and noctomancers, of varying degree and nature: ceremonial, cultural, philosophical, and, all too often, violent.
“My darling, my flower, you are a vision,” said Heraldin. “A sonnet striding among mortals.”
“Stability. The people in the streets claim their freedom or their virtue binds our kingdom together, but in a famine you’re only free to starve, and in a drought there is no virtue but survival. No, liberty and piety are well and good, but a kingdom needs stability to survive; a healthy stalemate wherein every people, every faction, every city finds the status quo preferable to the price of change.”
A long-forgotten thrill was creeping back into him, notes of excitement that rang in his voice and hummed in his bones. The open road was before him, with mysterious lands and unknown foes and treasures waiting to be discovered. Of course, he had spent the last twenty years with the open road before him, and certainly there were plenty of unknown foes along his way. But now he had a task, a reason to roam, rewards to be reaped. Not all who wander are lost; some are on quests.
“We follow her because we feel the same hollowness, the need for something that we cannot name, the call of something we cannot hear. We see that the world is wrong, but we don’t know the solution.”
“Marketing is its own kind of magic, is it not?” said Zurthraka. “An illusion that men pay to be fooled by.”
We’re coming for justice, even if we have to burn the world to get it. And as sure as the north wind blows cold in the winter, nothin’ will stand in our way.”
