A Time for Change.

[Jezerai]

((This takes place prior to Gilleana's betrayal to Qeynos and some years prior to the present.))



Gilleana sat at her desk, her features smooth and composed, her inner tension betrayed only by the rhythmic tapping of her long fingers on the smooth grained surface of the wood.  Being a shadowknight in service to Lucan D'Lere had had its benefits.  She had served faithfully and well for several years, ultimately rising to the rank of captain through her duel with the former occupant of that posting.  Yet despite that, here she sat contemplating whether to remain or go and if she went, to go where?

Gilleana was not a person given to questioning herself or her motives and was a bit at a loss regarding where to start now.  But the vague dissatisfaction she had felt throughout her years of service had crystalized, nearly to the level of outraged rebellion she had not experienced since her youth growing up in the Freeport Youth Camp.  She could recall when the dissatisfaction had first set in and did not know today whether to curse the experience or embrace it.  She had been a young private at the time and sent on a job clearing the old Freeport graveyard of the spirits that had accumulated there.  She recalled the lecture she had been given beforehand and her mouth twisted in a wry grin she had not been at liberty to display at the time.  The lecturer had the pompous air of all mages and the propaganda he attempted to pass off as a history lesson rang false even then.  The mission had been to clear out the spirits of the former Knights of Marr, which had accumulated in the graveyard.  The mage described the living men as cowardly and venial, but instead of filling Gilleana with contempt for these remnants of history as intended, the lecture whetted her curiosity about these Knights of Marr.  During her fight in the graveyard, she discovered that the spirits retained a certain nobility in death, beyond what she had come to expect from the undead, that whetted her curiosity still more leading Gilleana to take the trouble of reading the markers upon each tomb.  When she came to the tomb of the former leader of this squad and returned his ghost to its afterlife, she read the words there which belied the description of this former foe and excited a certain respect for the man which she was sure had not been intended.  Before leaving the graveyard to report her success, Gilleana saluted the tomb where the man slept.

Reading these inscriptions further whetted Gilleana's curiosity about the deity they had followed.  She found herself asking, "Who was this Marr".   Little remained of the history of Freeport, except the propaganda given out by its current leaders.  While Gilleana had recognized that much of what was being told to her was false, she had no variation of history to compare the stories to in order to determine for herself what was truth.  Nor was it easy to learn about Marr in the city Freeport had become, but the city had once been Marr's patron city and remnants of its history could be found in the most unlikely places.  Gilleana made it a hobby to uncover these remnants in an effort to piece together for herself what this god had stood for, contrary to the teachings of the city's current rulers.  The bits and pieces resonated with her inner conscience, the remnants of what had originally been instilled by her long-dead parents, echoes of the adult they had attempted to guide her to become.  It is unlikely they would recognize much of the wilful, spirited child they had known in the cold, cautious and rigid adult Gilleana had grown into, but the core values of honor, valor and regard for truth remained waiting to be nurtured back to life.  And the teachings she found of this dead god and his dead city fanned the flames and provided Gilleana anew with the principles her father had taught her in her dimly remembered childhood.  By the time Gilleana completed her revenge on the captain of the raiders who stole that childhood from her, this code of conduct was a firm part of her character, much at odds with her chosen path and career.

Not that Gilleana minded much of what she was ordered to do in the military.  The orcs, undead plague, and other vermin that over ran the countryside needed to be killed and their destruction excited her righteous fury.  But other commands were less easy to comply with, orders to punish various settlements by slaughtering innocent inhabitants, enforce unrighteous laws against the poor and downtrodden, or similar acts filled Gilleana with a repugnance for her superiors even while she admired the order and cohesiveness of the military structure she was a part of.  As bad as it was while she was a private merely following orders, the dissonance between what she felt was right and the reality of life in the Freeport militia became exponentially worse when she became captain of her squad, charged with leading her men on the missions detailed by those in command of her.  Each mission against those she felt she should be protecting instead of persecuting increased the loathing she felt both for herself and her leaders.  But there was no one she could turn to with these questions, no one to help her reason out the conflicting feelings she was experiencing.  No one until she had come across one calling himself a prophet of the returned god, Marr.

Her squad had come across the man on one of their patrols.  He didn't look particularly strange, but they had standing orders to bring in anyone preaching for Marr or any of the other deities followed by those of Qeynos who were disallowed in Freeport.  The man had looked directly in her eyes and calmly proclaimed the return of Marr to Norrath.  She had no choice then, but to take him into custody.  She might have dismissed him from her thoughts as a crackpot, except for that look.  And so, that evening she had her guard bring the prisoner in to her tent for questioning.  Questions about his purpose in the Commonlands had led, with almost fated directness, to a discussion about philosophy.  The bits and pieces she had picked up were woven into a tapestry for her to view.  Never emotional, Gilleana had not reacted outwardly to the changes taking place inwardly.  Changes that led to this moment, this line at which Gilleana sensed she would be forever changed.  The decision was hers.

Gilleana abruptly stood, her decision made.  It was time to leave Freeport and to go to a place where she would be free to follow Marr, and her conscience.