Flamerule 20, 1360 DR - Baldur's Gate, Eastway District - sitting with Kefra around a fire
The world-weary half-elf put her drink down long enough to ask Samuel, "Why did you come here?"
"Like I said. I've been lurking around, trying to find someone who can teleport me to Thesk," Samuel answered. "Though at this point, it feels like an exercise in futility."
"I didn't ask what are you doing. Why did you come here?"
"Oh. You mean, why am I even in the city in the first place?"
"Correct."
"Right. Well. That's kind of-" The young man considered the long and winding chain of events that had lead him back to the Sword Coast. He doubted the bleary-eyed drunkard wanted to hear his life story. "You want the long version or the short version?"
"The long version, there's time," she replied, defying Samuel's expectations.
"You asked for it." He sighed and shrugged. "So I was a member of a yaku-" Samuel paused, realizing the Faerunian probably hadn't heard the term "yakuza" before. "Eh, a gang, basically. A gang with Kara-Turan roots. One of my mentors basically turned traitor, and ended up getting in our way.
"You remember several months ago, all the mess with the gods coming down to the mortal level? Well, during that whole mess, I ended up fighting my mentor. And I'm not just boasting; I was very good. I actually used weapons back then. So I was, in short, winning. He was a dead man. But then he started pulling off holy feats, and don't ask me how."
She lifted her canteen once to sip from it, though she paused and let it back down almost immediately. "Prayer... probably," the half-elf said. She blinked slowly, motioning for him to continue.
"Maybe. But the gods were mortal at the time. Well, all except one, apparently. Anyways. He ended up beating me. By the skin of his teeth." Samuel remembered how Sempo's wounds had healed in seconds, how the old man had fought on with a power that could only have been divine. "So then he ran off to stop the rest of us, and left me for dead.
"I don't know how long I was out, but this monk came by. He tended to my wounds, and then, when the gods pranced back into the heavens and started granting holy powers again, he healed me fully. Turns out he was a monk-priest who followed the Celestial Bureaucracy... You heard of them?"
". . . Vaguely," the half-elf responded. "An eastern conglomerate of faiths." She continued to surprise.
"Basically," Samuel agreed. "Anyways, for the next year or two, I stuck with him. The gang I was with, they talked a lot about the rise of Kara-Turans in Faerun. But... I guess I started seeing why my mentor turned away from them. All their talk started looking a bit self-serving, the more time I spent with the monk. He was Kara-Turan through and through. Like, actually from Kara-Tur. I was born in Telflamm. Faerun.
"But he didn't care about where you were from or whether you were Faerunian or Kara-Turan. All he cared about was, were you capable of enlightenment? If yes, he'd help you. If not, he wouldn't waste his time with you. He cared about Kwan Ying more than about Kara-Tur. Anyways. He taught me about Kwan Ying, the Celestial Bureaucracy, and I started seeing what it really means to be Kara-Turan. Like, beyond the label and identity. I dunno if that makes sense.
"Then the Tuigans started invading Thesk. Part of me was thrilled about it. An eastern invasion into Faerun? Just what I dreamed of, you know? But that monk? He didn't care about where they were from. He thought they were scum, hurting people who didn't do anything wrong. So he fought the Tuigans, killed them mercilessly. He died defending Faerunians against an eastern force." Samuel paused, pained by the memory of the battle at Two Stars. "Like I said, the Tuigans were unstoppable.
"I'd run into my mentor again by then. He was also fighting the Tuigans. The mentor who'd turned traitor against my old gang. Well, that monk wanted his ashes disposed of in a volcano. I'd been to the Grey Peaks once, years ago, and figured that would be a good place to dispose of the monk's remains. So my old mentor used a teleportation scroll to bring me here, so I could take care of the monk's ashes... Then he teleported back without me.
"Oh, I forgot to mention: I'd decided to take on these robes after that monk died." Indeed, after conquering Two Stars, the Tuigans had driven thousands of refugees west. Seeing so much suffering had stifled Samuel's appetite for any more yakuza work and inspired him to put on the dead monk's robes. At the time, Samuel had thought to somehow carry on in the monk's stead. Now though, the notion seemed mad and vain; a bad joke.
"So my mentor was like, 'Hey good. Stick with this whole monk thing. Don't go back east, you'll just fall in with the gang again, now that the monk is gone.' So he ditched me here to go back and fight the Tuigans. And I've been trying to get back to Thesk ever since. There. That's the long version."
The woman took a deep breath, screwing the stopper back onto her canteen as she cleared her throat. "Think he might have had a point..?" She hooked the canteen onto her belt, then leaned forward with both hands.
Samuel shrugged. "Either way, it's not his call to make. He's gotten mighty sanctimonious since he turned traitor, preaches left and right."
"Clearly it was, 'cause here you are." She stared for a moment. "In all your story everything seemed to loop around to how great your mentor was being the reason you followed him. It sounds like you've brushed over one of the important reasons you thought he was great... that it doesn't matter who you're surrounded by, nationalities, allegiances... what matters is doing the right thing, in the moment."
"Oh, you mean the monk?" Surely she didn't mean his ex-mentor.
"Both, honestly. Just because someone has done wrong, or done wrong by you, doesn't change that they can be right."
"My old mentor, from the gang... he's an overblown windbag. That monk was really something, though." Samuel thought for a moment. "I don't know. I'm not trying to kill my old mentor anymore, at least."
"You shouldn't be, justice is better done by an impartial observer." The woman stood up. "That monk though, what would he be doing if he was stranded out here, war carrying on unknown in the east? Whatever it is..." She carried on without allowing him to answer, "I don't think it would be wallowing in self pity with a drunk has-been."
Samuel grunted and lapsed into silence.
"Take care of yourself kid." The woman pushed her hands into her pockets and walked off, leaving Samuel to stare thoughtfully into the fire.