The+Priests

//"Times change, boy. Excoriating me was House Jorasco's mistake. I'm glad to see they're capable of learning, e'en if it took 200 years."// ~ Deacon **Arthur Zimmall** to Pastor Dashiell Kaplan, 8 Eyre 998 YK

Sunlight rarely reached the streets of the Fallen District in Sharn.

The daytime construction crews rebuilding the walls of the vast Sovereign Host temple depended on //everbright lanterns// and coldfire torches hung from the scaffolding. Blessed with darkvision, the night shift work gangs -- goblins led by dwarf overseers -- usually got more done. Each night they were more heard than seen as they dressed the interior stone, laid tiles and cleared debris. It had taken months just to put the scaffolds in place, until they covered the ruins. Even before the scaffolding rose, it had taken more than a month to put a stockade around the work site.

Dashiell Kaplan stepped out of the tiny freestanding shack set up on the stage in what had been the main cathedral, next to the //Cauldron of Boldrei//, the immovable relic he'd helped liberate, and walked to an iron bell mounted on a post, with the clapper hanging on a chain. Ringing the bell for shift change was one of his few responsibilities, so Dashiell was always prompt and rang the bell with authority, the clanging sound reaching into every corner of the worksite. The work sounds stopped, and scarcely two minutes later four dusty dwarves, beards matted with sweat, were standing by the stage. He'd once asked them where the goblins went at daybreak. "Dunno, dun'care," one finally told him. "They do work, get coppers, disappear. Next day may not even be the same goblins workin'. S'long's they take orders an' make quota, Sovereigns dun'care. You should'na care." So he tried not to. He had a title -- On Site Project Manager -- but the dwarves were the experts and Dashiell had the wisdom to give them their space. He never saw a goblin use the stockade entrance, and only saw the dwarves at the dawn shift change and mealtime. They counted the goblins each night and paid them their coin. Every week the Church sent a skycoach with armed couriers to deliver the payroll, ugh I'm getting off-topic.

Kaplan stood by the bell as the day shift workers trudged up in a rough line from the stockade entrance to join the dwarves. A few waved at him. He waved back. Three -- two Human males and a female Shifter who, with her hunched posture and long arms, looked more dangerous than either man -- stood just below the //Cauldron// by the wide, cracked stairs, each holding an earthenware bowl. The dwarves had silver mugs in their hands. Dashiell made a quick circuit of the gathering, smiling and shaking hands, before taking his place by the basin.

//This is my Church, and these are my People//, he thought, rolling up his right sleeve to reveal the Dragonmark on his forearm. Clutching Boldrei's holy symbol in his left hand.

He never knew her name -- in fact, their entire interaction lasted less than a minute before she was killed by his companions in a desperate fight -- but the Gnoll cleric haunted Dashiell Kaplan's dreams.

Ever since he'd returned to the construction site last month, the dream had become a near-nightly occurrence for the young cleric. Before the Sovereign Host leadership in Sharn decided to reclaim the site, it had been perhaps their greatest shame: Abandoning the mighty Temple of the Sovereigns in Godsgate in Lower Dura. Eighty years ago the Glass Tower, a mainstay of the Upper Dura skyline, had abruptly collapsed. Hundreds in the tower died, hundreds more when the wreckage and debris, including glass chunks the size of horses and houses, fell on what had been a lively, active and prosperous temple district. But for the Silver Flame, every major church in Khorvaire quickly abandoned Godsgate, and with the Last War entering its third decade neither the city nor the Brelish crown in far off Wroat had the resources to rebuild.

And so Godsgate became Fallen, a bleak slum for the desperate and those who preyed on the desperate. The Sovereign churches came together and built their new Temple of the Nine in Upper Sharn; aside from a marble and bronze monument bearing the names of the priests who died that day, it was as if Godsgate had never existed. With no riches to extract and few respectable citizens to protect, both Sharn's criminal gangs and law enforcers left Fallen alone, and over time it became a haven for petty criminals, squatters, deserters, fugitives, cultists, goblins, rats and vermin.

Then Daask arrived. The new criminal gang of "monsters" from Droaam had, in just a few short years, become a force in Sharn's underworld to rival the entrenched Boromar Clan. Part of their success was finding neglected areas of the city to exploit, so sometime last year a force of Gnolls came to Fallen and set up their camp in the ruined temple.. had come to Fallen.

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