Sojourn - Chapter Twenty
Oct. 15th, 2023 09:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i_read_whatSo last time, we finished up an important arc in Drizzt's life. He's now a ranger and a follow of Mielikki. He's lost his mentor, but in a much more peaceful way than the previous guiding figures in his life. He's ready for a new stage...
So this chapter starts us off at a Harvest Inn in Westbridge, halfway between Waterdeep and Mirabar. There's a popular tavern there, where Roddy McGristle is enjoying some food. Apparently he's been here before, but folks noticed that he's gotten more growly since his experiences in Maldobar which scarred him physically and emotionally.
Hah, I'm reminded of those fans who said we should sympathize with Kylo Ren's pain for having witnessed the death of his father. Just sayin.
Anyway, he hides his physical scars behind his cowl and listens as some other patrons are arguing...about what, you may ask? Dark elves. Apparently Roddy has a reputation now, so they decide to consult Roddy.
Roddy has a loose relationship with truth, but he is bosom buddies with drama:
“Aw,” a disgruntled voice piped in from somewhere in the back, “what’s he know about dark elves.”
Roddy’s glare sent those in front back a step, and he noticed the movement. He liked the feeling, liked being important again, respected.
“Drow elf killed my dog,” he said gruffly. He reached down and yanked up the old yellow hound’s head, displaying the scar. “And dented this one’s head. Damned dark elf-“ he said deliberately, easing the cowl back from his face-“gave me this.” Normally Roddy hid the hideous scars, but the crowd’s gasps and mumbles sounded immensely satisfying to the wretched bounty hunter. He turned to the side, gave them a full view, and savored the reaction for as long as he could.
That gets some notice. So one dude explains how he met a drow elf. He'd been camping and he'd let up his fire. He'd had a guest who wanted a place for his companions and him to camp. The guest wore his cowl low (an interesting parallel to Roddy at the beginning of this chapter when you think of it), which had made the man suspicious. The man ordered him to pull back his hood and bam! Drow!
Roddy is disgruntled, feeling like he's heard too much about drow elves. But then...
The only man who wasn’t laughing was the fat-bellied storyteller, too shook up from his own recounting of his meeting with the drow. “Still,” he said above the commotion, “when I think of those purple eyes staring out at me from under that cowl!”
Drizzt's Marty Stu eyes. They'll do it every time.
See, Roddy knows about infravision. And most eyes that use infravision glow red. We never really did get an explanation for Drizzt's genetic quark there. But anyway, somehow, Roddy knows enough about drow infravision to know that purple is rare.
How DOES he know this? Is there a how-to book about drow infravision? Roddy's not exactly a scholar and there isn't any indication that he'd bothered to do any studying. (It might have worked as info dropped by Dove and Fret though, as they're both a ranger and a scholar respectively.)
Roddy asks about the drow's weapons. Scimitars. So yep. Drizzt is alive after all. And found company apparently!
“Did the drow say his name?” Roddy asked, and when the man hesitated, Roddy grabbed him by the collar and pulled him over the table. “Did the drow say his name?” the bounty hunter said again, his breath hot on the fat-bellied man’s face.
“No ... er, uh, Driz . . .”
“Drizzit?”
This part seems unnecessary. Roddy had already figured it out from the eyes and swords. And when would Drizzt have actually said his name in the anecdote? Ah well, I am nitpicking. Roddy learns that Drizzt's companions are the "Weeping Friars" (a fanatic religious group who "believed-or claimed to believe-that there was a finite amount of pain in the world. The more suffering they took on themselves, the friars said, the less remained for the rest of world to endure. Nearly everyone scorned the order. Some were sincere, but some begged for trinkets, promising to suffer horribly for the good of the giver." - that's actually a really interesting idea!).
Apparently the Friars always travel to Mirabar to "find the cold" in winter. They're taking the tunnel route, three hundred miles. Roddy storms off.
So Roddy and Tephanis are apparently still traveling together. Roddy is pissed about Tephanis's lying, but decides to let it go as long as they get Drizzt. And OH, apparently it's been six years since their last fight. Wow. SIX YEARS.
Okay, now we rejoin Drizzt. For all his somber reminiscence of rejection, he seems to be perfectly welcome with this group. Or, well:
[T]he Weeping Friars, while not actually shunning the drow, didn’t often go near him. Drizzt accepted this and knew that the fanatics appreciated his companionship for practical, if not aesthetic, reasons. Some of the band actually enjoyed attacks by the various monsters of the land, viewing them as opportunities for some true suffering, but the more pragmatic of the group appreciated having the armed and skilled drow around for protection.
It's not really the companionship that Drizzt wants, which, fair enough. But it's not rejection either. This bit makes me roll my eyes a bit:
The relationship was acceptable to Drizzt, if not fulfilling. He had left Mooshie’s Grove years ago filled with hope, but hope tempered by the realities of his existence. Time after time, Drizzt had approached a village only to be put out behind a wall of harsh words, curses, and drawn weapons. Every time, Drizzt shrugged away the snubbing. True to his ranger spirit-for Drizzt was indeed a ranger now, in training as well as in heart-he accepted his lot stoically.
The last rejection had shown Drizzt that his resolve was wearing thin, though. He had been turned away from Luskan, on the Sword Coast, but not by any guards, for he had never even approached the place. Drizzt’s own fears had kept him away, and that fact had frightened him more than any swords he had ever faced. On the road outside the city, Drizzt had met up with this handful of Weeping Friars, and the outcasts had tentatively accepted him, as much because they had no means to keep him out as because they were too full of their own wretchedness to care about any racial differences. Two of the group had even thrown themselves at Drizzt’s feet, begging him to unleash his “dark elf terrors” and make them suffer.
Is it really stoic if you're complaining about it? But then I had that issue in Crystal Shard too. That said, Drizzt seems awfully judgy about the Weeping Friars:
Through the spring and summer, the relationship had evolved with Drizzt serving as silent guardian while the friars went about their begging and suffering ways. All in all, it was quite distasteful, even sometimes deceitful, to the principled drow, but Drizzt had found no other options.
WOW. Really dude? Why don't you go travel alone then after all? If they're so "distasteful."
I'm not sure why I'm so annoyed by this. The Friars do seem like they'd be obnoxious. Maybe it's just the juxtaposition between Drizzt's "stoic" suffering of his solitude into "well, I DID find these guys, but they really suck." It's not like they're mass murderers, like your original company, dude.
Drizzt has been consoling himself by remembering that he's serving Mielikki, even as he's helping these "helpless fanatics". ("Still, he did not hold the friars in high regard and did not call them friends. Watching the five men now, drunk and slobbering all over each other, Drizzt suspected that he never would.")
Seriously dude, shut the fuck up. Maybe people don't like you because they can tell you're a pontificating, judgmental ass.
Also, honestly, these guys read more like kinksters than religious fanatics. See here:
“Beat me! Slash me!” one of the friars cried suddenly, and he ran over toward the barrel, stumbling into Drizzt. Drizzt caught him and steadied him, but only for a moment.
“Loosh your dwow whickedniss on me head!” the dirty, unshaven friar sputtered, and his lanky frame tumbled down in an angular heap.
Drizzt turned away, shook his head, and unconsciously dropped a hand into his pouch to feel the onyx figurine, needing the touch to remind him that he was not truly alone. He was surviving, fighting an endless and lonely battle, but was far from contented. He had found a place, perhaps, but not a home.
I find the idea that Drizzt accidentally started traveling with a bunch of lifestyle masochists without realizing it. When a dude bends over a barrel and cries for you to beat or slash him, that's an invitation. Think of all the sex Drizzt could have gotten! I mean, that one seems a little too drunk to actually consent, but some of the others might be sober!
He seems to get along a bit better with Brother Mateus, the most rational, "if not the most honest" (god, shut up, you judgmental asshole) of the group. He tells Brother Mateus that he will complete the trip to Mirabar then leave. This isn't his place.
Mateus seems a bit dismayed. The drunk masochist blurts out that the Ten Towns might be the place, but everyone ignores him. That's funny of course, because we know he's right. Sort of, anyway. And eventually, his babbling does catch Drizzt's attention.
Mateus hopes Drizzt will at least go through the tunnels with them though, as there are rakes there who would take advantage of the Friars.
Drizzt paused a moment, transfixed on Jankin’s words. Jankin had collapsed, though, and the draw looked up to Mateus. “Is that not why you take the tunnel route into the city?” Drizzt asked the portly friar. The tunnel was normally reserved for mine carts, rolling down from the Spine of the World, but the friars always went through it, even in situations such as this, when they had to make a complete circuit of the city just to get to the long route’s entrance. “To fall victim and suffer?” Drizzt continued. “Surely the road is clear and more convenient with winter still months away.” Drizzt did not like the tunnel to Mirabar. Any wanderers they met on that road would be too close for the drow to hide his identity. Drizzt had been accosted there on both his previous trips through.
“The others insist that we go through the tunnel, though it is many miles out of our way” replied Mateus, a sharp edge to his tone. “But I prefer more personal forms of suffering and would appreciate your company through to Mirabar,”
Drizzt wanted to scream at the phony friar Mateus considered missing a single meal a harsh suffering and only used his facade because many gullible people handed coins to the cloaked fanatics, more often than not just to be rid of the smelly men.
Jesus, dude. If you dislike them that much, then just leave. If you're pretending to be friendly, just to get their money and company, then are you really any more honest?
This isn't "stoic suffering". This is just being an egocentric martyr. And an asshole.
The chapter ends with Drizzt pompously reminding himself that he's serving his goddess and his heart even though the group's behavior "often flew in the face of those words."
Well, I can say that Salvatore definitely has a gift for consistent characterization. I am now reminded exactly of why Drizzt irritated the fuck out of me in the Icewind Dale trilogy. It's a shame, mostly likable young Drizzt. I will miss you.
Feh, the chapter ends here.
So this chapter starts us off at a Harvest Inn in Westbridge, halfway between Waterdeep and Mirabar. There's a popular tavern there, where Roddy McGristle is enjoying some food. Apparently he's been here before, but folks noticed that he's gotten more growly since his experiences in Maldobar which scarred him physically and emotionally.
Hah, I'm reminded of those fans who said we should sympathize with Kylo Ren's pain for having witnessed the death of his father. Just sayin.
Anyway, he hides his physical scars behind his cowl and listens as some other patrons are arguing...about what, you may ask? Dark elves. Apparently Roddy has a reputation now, so they decide to consult Roddy.
Roddy has a loose relationship with truth, but he is bosom buddies with drama:
“Aw,” a disgruntled voice piped in from somewhere in the back, “what’s he know about dark elves.”
Roddy’s glare sent those in front back a step, and he noticed the movement. He liked the feeling, liked being important again, respected.
“Drow elf killed my dog,” he said gruffly. He reached down and yanked up the old yellow hound’s head, displaying the scar. “And dented this one’s head. Damned dark elf-“ he said deliberately, easing the cowl back from his face-“gave me this.” Normally Roddy hid the hideous scars, but the crowd’s gasps and mumbles sounded immensely satisfying to the wretched bounty hunter. He turned to the side, gave them a full view, and savored the reaction for as long as he could.
That gets some notice. So one dude explains how he met a drow elf. He'd been camping and he'd let up his fire. He'd had a guest who wanted a place for his companions and him to camp. The guest wore his cowl low (an interesting parallel to Roddy at the beginning of this chapter when you think of it), which had made the man suspicious. The man ordered him to pull back his hood and bam! Drow!
Roddy is disgruntled, feeling like he's heard too much about drow elves. But then...
The only man who wasn’t laughing was the fat-bellied storyteller, too shook up from his own recounting of his meeting with the drow. “Still,” he said above the commotion, “when I think of those purple eyes staring out at me from under that cowl!”
Drizzt's Marty Stu eyes. They'll do it every time.
See, Roddy knows about infravision. And most eyes that use infravision glow red. We never really did get an explanation for Drizzt's genetic quark there. But anyway, somehow, Roddy knows enough about drow infravision to know that purple is rare.
How DOES he know this? Is there a how-to book about drow infravision? Roddy's not exactly a scholar and there isn't any indication that he'd bothered to do any studying. (It might have worked as info dropped by Dove and Fret though, as they're both a ranger and a scholar respectively.)
Roddy asks about the drow's weapons. Scimitars. So yep. Drizzt is alive after all. And found company apparently!
“Did the drow say his name?” Roddy asked, and when the man hesitated, Roddy grabbed him by the collar and pulled him over the table. “Did the drow say his name?” the bounty hunter said again, his breath hot on the fat-bellied man’s face.
“No ... er, uh, Driz . . .”
“Drizzit?”
This part seems unnecessary. Roddy had already figured it out from the eyes and swords. And when would Drizzt have actually said his name in the anecdote? Ah well, I am nitpicking. Roddy learns that Drizzt's companions are the "Weeping Friars" (a fanatic religious group who "believed-or claimed to believe-that there was a finite amount of pain in the world. The more suffering they took on themselves, the friars said, the less remained for the rest of world to endure. Nearly everyone scorned the order. Some were sincere, but some begged for trinkets, promising to suffer horribly for the good of the giver." - that's actually a really interesting idea!).
Apparently the Friars always travel to Mirabar to "find the cold" in winter. They're taking the tunnel route, three hundred miles. Roddy storms off.
So Roddy and Tephanis are apparently still traveling together. Roddy is pissed about Tephanis's lying, but decides to let it go as long as they get Drizzt. And OH, apparently it's been six years since their last fight. Wow. SIX YEARS.
Okay, now we rejoin Drizzt. For all his somber reminiscence of rejection, he seems to be perfectly welcome with this group. Or, well:
[T]he Weeping Friars, while not actually shunning the drow, didn’t often go near him. Drizzt accepted this and knew that the fanatics appreciated his companionship for practical, if not aesthetic, reasons. Some of the band actually enjoyed attacks by the various monsters of the land, viewing them as opportunities for some true suffering, but the more pragmatic of the group appreciated having the armed and skilled drow around for protection.
It's not really the companionship that Drizzt wants, which, fair enough. But it's not rejection either. This bit makes me roll my eyes a bit:
The relationship was acceptable to Drizzt, if not fulfilling. He had left Mooshie’s Grove years ago filled with hope, but hope tempered by the realities of his existence. Time after time, Drizzt had approached a village only to be put out behind a wall of harsh words, curses, and drawn weapons. Every time, Drizzt shrugged away the snubbing. True to his ranger spirit-for Drizzt was indeed a ranger now, in training as well as in heart-he accepted his lot stoically.
The last rejection had shown Drizzt that his resolve was wearing thin, though. He had been turned away from Luskan, on the Sword Coast, but not by any guards, for he had never even approached the place. Drizzt’s own fears had kept him away, and that fact had frightened him more than any swords he had ever faced. On the road outside the city, Drizzt had met up with this handful of Weeping Friars, and the outcasts had tentatively accepted him, as much because they had no means to keep him out as because they were too full of their own wretchedness to care about any racial differences. Two of the group had even thrown themselves at Drizzt’s feet, begging him to unleash his “dark elf terrors” and make them suffer.
Is it really stoic if you're complaining about it? But then I had that issue in Crystal Shard too. That said, Drizzt seems awfully judgy about the Weeping Friars:
Through the spring and summer, the relationship had evolved with Drizzt serving as silent guardian while the friars went about their begging and suffering ways. All in all, it was quite distasteful, even sometimes deceitful, to the principled drow, but Drizzt had found no other options.
WOW. Really dude? Why don't you go travel alone then after all? If they're so "distasteful."
I'm not sure why I'm so annoyed by this. The Friars do seem like they'd be obnoxious. Maybe it's just the juxtaposition between Drizzt's "stoic" suffering of his solitude into "well, I DID find these guys, but they really suck." It's not like they're mass murderers, like your original company, dude.
Drizzt has been consoling himself by remembering that he's serving Mielikki, even as he's helping these "helpless fanatics". ("Still, he did not hold the friars in high regard and did not call them friends. Watching the five men now, drunk and slobbering all over each other, Drizzt suspected that he never would.")
Seriously dude, shut the fuck up. Maybe people don't like you because they can tell you're a pontificating, judgmental ass.
Also, honestly, these guys read more like kinksters than religious fanatics. See here:
“Beat me! Slash me!” one of the friars cried suddenly, and he ran over toward the barrel, stumbling into Drizzt. Drizzt caught him and steadied him, but only for a moment.
“Loosh your dwow whickedniss on me head!” the dirty, unshaven friar sputtered, and his lanky frame tumbled down in an angular heap.
Drizzt turned away, shook his head, and unconsciously dropped a hand into his pouch to feel the onyx figurine, needing the touch to remind him that he was not truly alone. He was surviving, fighting an endless and lonely battle, but was far from contented. He had found a place, perhaps, but not a home.
I find the idea that Drizzt accidentally started traveling with a bunch of lifestyle masochists without realizing it. When a dude bends over a barrel and cries for you to beat or slash him, that's an invitation. Think of all the sex Drizzt could have gotten! I mean, that one seems a little too drunk to actually consent, but some of the others might be sober!
He seems to get along a bit better with Brother Mateus, the most rational, "if not the most honest" (god, shut up, you judgmental asshole) of the group. He tells Brother Mateus that he will complete the trip to Mirabar then leave. This isn't his place.
Mateus seems a bit dismayed. The drunk masochist blurts out that the Ten Towns might be the place, but everyone ignores him. That's funny of course, because we know he's right. Sort of, anyway. And eventually, his babbling does catch Drizzt's attention.
Mateus hopes Drizzt will at least go through the tunnels with them though, as there are rakes there who would take advantage of the Friars.
Drizzt paused a moment, transfixed on Jankin’s words. Jankin had collapsed, though, and the draw looked up to Mateus. “Is that not why you take the tunnel route into the city?” Drizzt asked the portly friar. The tunnel was normally reserved for mine carts, rolling down from the Spine of the World, but the friars always went through it, even in situations such as this, when they had to make a complete circuit of the city just to get to the long route’s entrance. “To fall victim and suffer?” Drizzt continued. “Surely the road is clear and more convenient with winter still months away.” Drizzt did not like the tunnel to Mirabar. Any wanderers they met on that road would be too close for the drow to hide his identity. Drizzt had been accosted there on both his previous trips through.
“The others insist that we go through the tunnel, though it is many miles out of our way” replied Mateus, a sharp edge to his tone. “But I prefer more personal forms of suffering and would appreciate your company through to Mirabar,”
Drizzt wanted to scream at the phony friar Mateus considered missing a single meal a harsh suffering and only used his facade because many gullible people handed coins to the cloaked fanatics, more often than not just to be rid of the smelly men.
Jesus, dude. If you dislike them that much, then just leave. If you're pretending to be friendly, just to get their money and company, then are you really any more honest?
This isn't "stoic suffering". This is just being an egocentric martyr. And an asshole.
The chapter ends with Drizzt pompously reminding himself that he's serving his goddess and his heart even though the group's behavior "often flew in the face of those words."
Well, I can say that Salvatore definitely has a gift for consistent characterization. I am now reminded exactly of why Drizzt irritated the fuck out of me in the Icewind Dale trilogy. It's a shame, mostly likable young Drizzt. I will miss you.
Feh, the chapter ends here.
no subject
Date: 2023-10-16 12:45 pm (UTC)Also, yeah, Mateus is right that there are different ways to suffer. In silence because of Depression, or well, physically, as examples.
Oh, and now that I think about it, there is a Goddess that deals in physical suffering, I think? I just forgot her name. It's been a while, and I've only been up for about an hour. Was it Talona? Gah, I'll check later.
no subject
Date: 2023-10-16 01:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-10-16 02:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-10-16 03:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-10-16 04:19 pm (UTC)Ilmater is a god that probably ought to appeal to Drizzt, but then Drizzt probably couldn't feel noble about his martyrdom if everyone is doing it.
no subject
Date: 2023-10-16 04:30 pm (UTC)Also, you play NWN too? Man, I haven't played that game in years! Though, I do happen to be in a Discord server with other fans of the game. I could DM you an invite to it if you want?
no subject
Date: 2023-10-16 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-09 12:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-11 04:57 am (UTC)