Carnival Carnage

I failed House Senhotep today. I failed my house today. Not in my mission, Spirits spare me that dishonor, but... I strayed from the Pilgrim's Path.
 
The day began with a setback. A minor one, at that; my attempt to reach Mai Lin in the Flynns' dungeon was checked by two mongrel guards, children of Gladios who'd nothing better to do with themselves than be watchdogs for pirates. But, with them barring my entrance--it is a shame I've no greater ability in the silvertongue's arts--I had no way to proceed aside from infiltration, or a direct assault. The former would've gotten me killed, I am no fool; as Orlando was dissuading me from the latter, I caught the curs tailing us back, and we fled through the streets.
 
It's funny--ofttimes Orlando runs as if he's trying to lose me. Perhaps he is! His ability to get into trouble is something remarkable, but he inexplicably always seems to find his way out.
 
Almost always.
 
We lost the thugs by ducking into a circus. Simple enough affair--acrobats, athletes, the whole bizarre lot. Orlando seemed rather jealous of it all, quite frankly!
 
But then they loosed a massive scorpion in the ring with a man-beast and it all went downhill.
 
The wolfman was--is--an impressive specimen, even despite how he is kept. Bloodred fur like the scales of Fraxiros, gritty determination the likes of some finer dragonborn I know. He dealt a series of sore blows to the scorpion, before it made a break for the stands; perhaps the blows he dealt it put it into despair? I needed to keep my head down, certainly, but I could not stand by while civilians were under threat.
 
My first mistake. That was the first opportunity to flee which I let slide between my fingers.
 
The bard struck up a tune and I found myself enchanted. He tamed the heart of the beast as if it were the strings upon his guitar he plucked. Even as folk fled the tent, he performed on, with his usual foolhardy bravado. Even got a few silvers, the minstrel. The ringleader... did not share his enthusiasm for the craft.
 
We found ourselves confronted by six of these circus thugs. The scorpion was still under Orlando's control. It seemed a ridiculous, petty squabble for them to pursue, but then again... was that also not the case for us?
 
It would've been easy enough to leave. Pragmatic, no doubt--I need to remember that a low profile will always suit me better while I'm in pursuit of state secrets--but something about this peacock's braggadocio spurred me on. I wanted to take a stand here. And I was frustrated from my earlier failure, I was impatient, I was eager, and father I was everything you trained me not to be. I'm sorry. Hikari would've done better.
 
I stepped into the spotlight and roared death upon them. Two were killed the instant my echoes of Zephyros' wrath left my jaws, the others hurt badly. The performers' little bodies looked so lanky and small, writhing on the ground. The ringleader stung me with his whip, and I killed his companion, cut into him, urged him to cease--but he did not. Some mad fury drove him onward, some hope that, even in death, he would see me punished. His head fell from his body almost eagerly. Again we offered mercy, and again they persisted. Orlando's new pet dealt the penultimate thug, one of the few truly cruel-seeming ones, a gruesome death, and again we offered mercy to the last man standing, a half-orc. He seemed a simple soul--he treated the wolfman with kindness even as he led him back to captivity, and took modest pride in his impressive physique.
 
I offered him mercy again and again. His fists were mighty, but untrained, and his blows rolled off me like water. He told us his family was captive of these folk, that his children would be killed if he fled or failed. I offered to help save them, some desperate, ridiculous offer, and yet he would still not put his wife and his children at risk.
 
So I turned aside his helpless blows and gave him an honorable death.
 
I will remember his strength as I continue. His soul echoes with the noblest spirits I can name. I will find his family and let them know their father, even in another's thrall, was a great hero. In his final breaths, he told me how to free the man-beast.
 
Their bodies were some horrible gleeful spectacle, lying dead on the ground in their gaudy attire. The smiles painted upon their faces were twisted into screams. There was no harmony there, no peace. Whatever spirits hummed within them had been quashed. I can't help but think of all the chances I offered them to stop. Why, as their companions fell around them and their hope of victory died, did they keep fighting? Why would they persist in this mad, hopeless endeavor?
 
Why didn't I walk away?
 
We freed the wolfman as his troupe-mates cam upon the carnage--we'll have to be responsible for some acrobat-girl now, get her on the next boat to Hu Zhuang Wu. I hope we can trust him. Someone of his tenacity would be very useful in a confrontation. What struck me was that the wolfman saw us in spite, as if we were responsible for his companions' frenzied persistence in the fight. I offered them mercy time and time again.
 
I am very adept at killing, father. I learned that tonight more than ever.
 
Not good enough to escape what was waiting for us outside: a row of guns and a drow who made even Orlando cower in fear. Another damn dead end. More entanglements. More complications. Every moment's delay, my mission grows more and more desperate, and I seem to grow more and more reckless. I was to infiltrate the Flynns' tonight, and now I have to find my way out of the Maycomb brig.
 
I will right these wrongs soon. I will complete my mission. I will reclaim my honor and my discipline and my purpose.
 
And then, my blood, I will see your proud faces again.
 
May the Great Spirits watch me through the gleam of my sword, guard me in the plates of my armor, guide me in the words of the strangers I've yet to make familiar, and bless me in the light of sun and moon. May the souls I see from this place of waking linger not in the echoes of the dust, but find their way to groves of peace. May the songs I cut short ring with harmony as they fade. I am but a transient pilgrim walking the tracks of this past and future world, my blood the blood of my lord and my father and my people.