Re: Witch Battle
Rath's rooms at the tower were seldom slept in, though he visited the place every day or two.
He spent the late afternoons walking the city, each day finding a new place to watch the sun drop in the west. Despite having the obvious favor of the gods, he was never one to offer prayers to Pelor. The important rituals were in the morning, which he ignored and in fact slept through. There were established minor rituals for sunset, of course. These also Rath ignored, but he was silently developing his own quiet ones. It was the stars that drew him, that gave him his first real sense of the divine. As the Eye of Pelor, the sun, extinguished, the blaze of starlight erupted slowly in the ink-blue-black sky. The first star -- a bright blue light, hanging high, a herald to the next. And the next. And a thousand, a hundred thousand, and uncounted multitude of lights. Every one an Eye. Every one a more mild eye than the blasting, warming, burning, enlightening, blinding Sun. Every one a spear into Rath's soul. A hundred thousand spears, pinning Rath to the world like a splayed butterfly.
When the sun was down and the stars were out and the city was at its darkest, Rath prowled Stormhaven. The docks, the Narrows, the filthy alleys and cramped dens. The sick houses, the poor houses, the soup kitchens, the prisons. He took away blindness, drove away fever. He fed the hungry and anyone who pretended hunger. These were the people who would not seek out the temple of Pelor. They would not set foot in the new-built Church of Peace. But they were under the stars. Rath did not ask who deserved healing, who had earned a meal. Did not ask who, because of selfishness or violence or cowardice, deserved pain and death. No one under the Sun gets what they deserve. But all who were under the Sun were also under the stars. Everyone was hungry. Everyone was wounded. Everyone was diseased.
In the late of night, Rath went to Rose. Together they found comfort, but Rath was distant in a way that saddened them both. Still, they cleaved to one another. Then sleep, and while they slept, the Sun rose again.
Rath agreed to escort Astral back to the Seven Falls Canyon. "I got the feeling you won't need me," he told Marissa, "but, honest, I think I need to see the dragon get home." It was a pleasant enough journey. Rath took some satisfaction that Inas was getting his crisis-free journey, the one he spoke of at the paladin's tomb. On the trail, every evening Rath watched for the blue star. He stayed up late, and he dragged himself out of his bedroll grudgingly each morning.
Saying good-bye to Astral, Rath smirked. "Just remember who broke you out of that cage, right?" He gave her a long look, offered her his hand to sniff or to lick, and turned away to give Marissa space to have her time with Astral.
The dragon's hoard -- or half of it -- seemed to Rath a preposterous pile of wealth. Enough to feed the city. If folks could eat gold.
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OOC: Sorry if this is a little over-the-top. I figured it was time for Rath to have a religious experience.