Work Text:
Statement of Robert Slippins, regarding the unusual death of Lord Jarlic “Sultan” Scotch. Original statement given Eleasis, Highsun 3, 1500. Recording by Sonath, assistant scribe to the Waterdeep City Watch.
Statement begins.
Look, I don’t know what happened to the Sultan-er-Lord Scotch. Not really. But I’m not sure where else to turn, and the Protectors at Blackstaff Academy refused to give me the time of day.
So, I am hoping you will listen. And maybe what happened to me will not happen to - to anyone else.
I suppose if I am going to do this properly, I should start with how I came into his employ. Or perhaps before that. These things rarely begin where one expects them to.
This all started when my brother, Dick, came to me with what he called a job opportunity. In Dick language, that usually means waiting for someone to look the other way before nicking something off a cart. Which, I know-speaking to the City Watch-I am meant to pronounce as wrong. But the things he stole usually went toward helping the Family. That’s what we call the halfling community here. And Waterdeep seems especially uninterested in hiring halflings. I haven’t seen any of us in the Watch House, working at least.
So it rather evens out.
But I digress.
Dick didn’t come to me because he needed my magic. He never does. It’s never been that reliable anyway, what with my nerves not being the best. He came because he needed someone who could talk. Someone who could stand in front of a man with guards and titles and convince him to not immediately reach for a knife.
He told me there was an object. Something small. Valuable. Something the Sultan kept close but never showed. Dick said it would be easy. In and out.
I should clarify-Lord Scotch came by his nickname of Sultan after his sojourn to Calimshan. He left on a trip to “find himself” and returned with considerably more wealth, and a new, sour, aloof disposition. All told, his household guards did not reflect the amount of treasure being kept inside.
We were to liberate some of those riches and get a look at what the Sultan guarded so greedily.
I now regret going in. But I could never say no to Dick before. He’s younger than me, and I never could stop myself from indulging him.
The night we attempted the “job,” my magic had been going especially haywire. It plays up with my emotions, you see, and I was feeling particularly nervous. I almost stayed home. But I wouldn’t allow him to go without me.
So off we went.
I went to the front door, our story being that I was soliciting alms for the poor and destitute. I would put on my show while Dick slipped in through the rear and helped himself to the Sultan’s vast treasure hoard. The final act would be the trick of separating Lord Scotch from the small trinket he coveted so much he kept it in his pocket.
I knew something was off when he met me at the door. What sort of lord answers his own door? But worse than that was the smell emanating from the house. A dry, scoured smell. Like wind over sand. There was also a high-pitched sound, just above the range of perception, that made my teeth ache.
He did not look at me. Not at first. He spoke to the space just over my shoulder, as if addressing something taller. I remember feeling very calm about that, which should have frightened me more than it did.
For a moment, his attention shifted. He turned sharply, toward the back of the house, as though something had caught his interest. Then it returned to me instead.
The job went wrong, though not in a way Dick is willing to hear. Lord Scotch asked me what I was doing there, and what I now understand was a compulsion led me to explaining everything. I talked, though I had not planned to. I talked until my throat burned and my hands shook and the air around me bent in ways it never had before.
Dick was caught and punished harshly. But he was alive. I doubt that if he had come any closer to the Sultan, he still would be.
Lord Scotch listened, staring intently at me. Then he offered me a job. I calmly accepted. I have been calm ever since.
I served as his secretary during those five years. During that time, I calmly observed a number of peculiarities. He did not blink. I do not mean that he blinked infrequently; I do not recall seeing his eyelids move at all.
His household remained unnaturally dry, despite overlooking the pier at Waterdeep. And the emotions one might reasonably expect in others, fear, anger, relief, failed to manifest in his presence.
He would occasionally remark on how well fed I kept him. I never found this remark strange, despite not recalling him ever eating or drinking. I understand now why that was.
I knew only that my brother remained safe. The Sultan could have taken him. I understand that now. Something reached, and then stopped. And I have often wondered if Dick knows how close he came - and whether that makes my survival harder for him to forgive.
But yes. I was explaining Lord Scotch’s demise. You must forgive me. My thoughts have been somewhat disordered since.
Lord Scotch came to me one evening and handed me instructions for the handling of his estate, along with a sack of coins. He told me that he had had his fun, but that it was time to return.
I asked him to clarify, though I did not feel particularly compelled to do so.
Then Lord Scotch reached up and felt around near the crown of his head. He appeared to find what he was looking for and inserted his fingers into his own skull. He peeled his flesh away as though removing a garment. There was no blood. The skin had been prepared, like leather.
Beneath it stood something else. I could not describe it, and I will not try. It sifted through the skin it had discarded and retrieved a small, bright gem I had never been allowed to see.
I am grateful for that now. Because when I looked into the gem, I saw only myself. Many versions. Some smiling. Some crying. Most screaming.
That is when I blacked out.
When I came to, I was alone in an empty house with nothing but the note, the coins, and what remained of Lord Scotch.
I do not know what happened to the guards.
The note-purportedly instructions for the estate-offers little clarity. I have it here, along with Lord Scotch’s… skin.
What concerns me is that much of the note appears to be rambling. And some passages mention Dick by name.
I have attempted to warn him. My Sendings remain unanswered.
And, strangely, I still feel nearly nothing about it. I believe this is what it meant when it said I kept it well fed.
Statement ends.