A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 72: Execution

Faust coughed and rolled his neck, looking very much like he wanted to rub it if his hands hadn't been tied.

"Yep. I am much stronger than Caleldir. I mean, my body is still ghostly, and therefore not quite as muscled as some, but my mind can rip apart stone buildings," he illustrated this by having the axe spin around in the air with enough force and speed to turn an ogre into a fine red mist. "So, enjoy your death! I know I will..."

"I dislike you," Althaia muttered. "When this is over, I am healing you back to full health immediately."

Goelon grinned underneath his mask. Not that anyone could see, but the grin was something that everyone could simply feel. "I am counting on it. Caleldir does not like it when I drain the life he needs to go back to full health by sucking it out of random people."

And so, oddly grinning underneath his mask, the Ghost King walked after the others. Well, technically he walked, although his gait was a rather odd one. He said nothing to Dria or the others, just stood around looking rather ominous.

They walked out of the castle, and were met by throngs of people standing in the courtyard in front of a large platform. Artur was standing upon this platform, informing the people that everything would begin soon. His voice boomed easily across the crowd by obviously magical means; everyone could hear what he was saying.

"There you are." Dria said from her position just behind the platform where she could watch the main doors. "Lady Althaia, would you like to introduce yourself to them, or should we have Artur introduce you? Either way, I think you should explain things to them. We should do that before the execution. I see you already have your executioner. Is he castle staff or - never mind, it doesn't matter. We should begin before the people become impatient."

"I will speak to the crowd," Althaia sighed. "But it would be appropriate to be introduced. Especially if I am to be, in effect, the new ruler of the city. Duchess? Queen? Princess? I suppose we can call Port Afron a Principality and make me a princess. People like princesses. I can even get some Divine Right in if called for. Aelsuna would be happy to help me in that way."

"I was called Lord," Faust reminded Althaia, having overheard her mutterings.

Dria led Althaia to the side of the platform where there were stairs up. Then she and Artur shared a look. Artur nodded. "...In fact, we shall begin right at this moment! Let me introduce you to the lovely Lady Althaia, the kind and just Paladin who will take your Lord Faust's place in the coming months!"

The crowd met that with curiosity and a little bit of relief; it had been a hard couple of weeks for them under Lord Faust's care. He had driven them toward death, he had taken away many of their freedoms 'for their own good,' and he had become every bit the terrifying fiendspawn he had always denied being. By that point, they were open to a change of government... as long as the new regime didn't pick right up after the last one...

Taking a deep breath, Althaia stepped up in front of the crowd, and flashed them all a brilliant smile. She had chosen her appearance carefully for this; a slightly more ornate simple white dress than normal. Consciously averting her race's reputation, she was dressed modestly by Port Afron standards, although not prudishly either. Her only ornamentation was the sword at her side.

The crowd seemed open to the Paladin's presence. Paladins were inherently trustworthy; all the stories of them and all the people they'd met were the most upstanding of people. It would be a nice change from the fiend spawn, whose 'people' were often wicked and apparently prone to madness.

"Good citizens of Port Afron, the mercenary tribes, and the denizens of the town in the wood!" she began. "It pains me that this course of action was necessary, that we should have to take the city by storm and depose a ruler once so just. But a madness had taken him, one that you all suffered from. This madness, spurred on by the unwanted, desperately resisted influence of a fiendish father twisting his blood against him, turned Faust from an honorable leader to one beset by paranoia, a madman who genuinely thought he was doing the right thing when he tyrannized you all. It has been a tragedy, and it pains me that Faust, for all the good that he once was, has been compromised. His father's influence ever grows, and so, for the crimes he committed almost unwillingly, and to prevent further evil spawned from the Inferno, Faust's life will have to end."

Pausing for a moment, she surveyed the reactions of the crowd. They were listening closely to her words, and still seemed open to her words.

"Many of you will be glad, many of you will rejoice. You will say good riddance, that he deserved it, that the world is a better place because Faust is no longer in it. You will be of a mind to celebrate. I ask that you do not. An execution is not a time for celebration. It is a time for grief. We grieve for the victims of the crimes that necessitate such an action. But we grieve also for the criminal, for evil is something to be pitied as much as it something to be destroyed. We should seek not vengeance, but justice, and justice gloats not. This is an execution, but it is also a funeral. Justice demands that Faust pay for his crimes, but mercy gently tells us not to scorn the man he became, and remember instead the man he was."

She bowed her head, and gestured Faust forward.

The crowd began open, but they ended absolutely dazzled by her words and her beauty. Everyone picked up on the solemn nature of the proceedings; some even looked sad, and others pitying. No one would celebrate Faust's death. When Althaia gestured to the man in question, they turned their eye to him, and waited in as much silence as a crowd of that magnitude could muster.

Ashyr and Tsabdrin led Faust over to the stairs up the platform, but let the fiend spawn join Althaia by himself. Neither looked very comfortable in the presence of so many people. And Tsabdrin was still a little baffled at what was going on with Caleldir/Goelon. He had stayed quiet during that exchange, and his expression was carefully neutral. So the rangers didn't much want to join Althaia if they didn't have to. The presence of dark elves probably wouldn't go over well, either. At least, that was what they told themselves.

Faust walked up to Althaia silently, tiredly. Then he turned to the crowd with a neutral expression that utterly belied the turmoil boiling just beneath the surface. He trembled with it - with the terror, the disappointment, the hopelessness, the guilt. It was too subtle for the crowd to see, thankfully. But when he opened his mouth to speak, his voice was nothing but clear, deep, and commanding. He had his own stage presence, and the people knew him. Or at least who he had been. Over the years, he'd spoken personally to the majority of the city. That meant something, even after he had broken all of their trust. Althaia had said that they should remember the man that he was, but he felt compelled to confess and spell out his crimes all the same. If it made the people hate him, so be it.

Seeing Faust's roiling emotional turmoil, Althaia gently put a hand on his shoulder for a moment, bolstering his resolve with a Paladin's fearlessness.

"Lady Althaia speaks the truth." Faust confirmed rather redundantly; everyone already believed her. "I may seem sane at this moment, but that is only by the mercy of powerful magic that will soon fade and cannot easily be recast. I have already done terrible things. I have ordered innocent people tortured and killed. I have forced my army to attack people who had nothing to do with this. I have turned all of you into slaves and prisoners in your own city. My life is over, whether I die here or have my mind taken over by my sire. So I go willingly into this execution, to pay for my crimes. I apologize for the grief that I caused."

There were scattered murmurs through the crowd as his booming voice became silent. Everyone seemed to accept what he said, but almost no one looked happy about it. There were of course the sadistic few scattered across the crowd who were quietly enjoying themselves, as there would be an any gathering so large. On the whole, however, the crowd adopted the outlook that Althaia wanted them to have even after Faust reminded them of what he had done.

Althaia gestured for silence. "Goodbye, Faust." She said gently, but loudly enough that everyone could hear. "May your soul find a better life than this one."

She gestured for Goelon to come forward, which the intensely creepy fellow did, holding his enormous axe as if it was paper. He put Faust on the headsman's block, and stood to the side.

Faust was grateful for the emotional boost he had received earlier. If he hadn't had it, he feared that he would have disgraced himself in front of what had been his people. Even with that boost, it was a struggle to get to get to his knees and remain still for long enough for it to be over. He managed it, however.

Althaia nodded to Goelon. The ghost swung his axe once, and the moment that the blade touched the tiefling's neck, he was dead, his ghost bound to Caleldir's spirit. The tiefing would be able to witness his own beheading safely outside his body, or at least the aftermath, for the execution was very brief. The head fell forward bloodlessly, for the axe cauterized the gash even as it whistled smoothly through bone and flesh as if they were no more than air themselves.

It was over. Althaia turned back to the crowd, and launched into what ended up being a very long speech. She started with a funeral eulogy for Faust, interspersing a recounting of his crimes with a far longer list of his accomplishments. She could not really take credit for the speech nor really its delivery; she had had divine help with its structure and composition as much as with her prodigious oratorical talents, but that was hardly a strike against her. She made masterful parallels between the crimes that he had committed and the good he had once done, painting the good and evil of his life with the same brush of uncompromising justice and tender mercy.

His ghost - less monstrous and more elven than he had been in life - turned away from the sight of his lifeless body. Nor did he look at the crowd when Althaia gave the best eulogy a man could ever hope for. He had been a good man, as it became quite clear from Althaia's speech. But all that good he had done tasted like ash in his mouth, for it had been burned away by his damned sire. So Faust's spirit sat against the other side of the platform, brooding and serious.

When the funeral elegy was over, and Faust's body had been quietly spirited away by Goelon and handed over to Ashyr to store inside R.I.S.A., Althaia turned the topic of the speech to other things, spending some time praising the druids and mercenaries for their valor in taking the city, and the city guard for their valor in defending it. She told stories of heroic acts she had witnessed on both sides, and urged for peace to finally be made, for divisions to be patched up, for grudges to cease. She then moved on to promises for the future, promising hard times ahead, but assuring them all that the future would be better than the past and that they had much to look forward to. She finally got down on her knees in front of the crowd, asking them if they would follow her into a bright tomorrow, no matter the challenges they all faced.

The crowd erupted in cheers. The probably would have followed her to Hell and back if she asked them to. Guards had to work to keep the crowd from rushing the stage. A random wizard nearby with a flair for the dramatic somehow made it look like it was raining white petals across the sage for a good five minutes. The excitement show no signs of stopping even after a few minutes of carrying on.

Even Goelon was moved. The ghost looked guilty and uncomfortable, staring at the ground, a tear coming out of his eye. "Damn. That girl has a way with words," he admitted quietly to Selene.