<div class="floatleft">(https://pro2-bar-s3-cdn-cf6.myportfolio.com/acfc487f628999a8d795fd4e0bac95b4/7144f155-86a7-460e-be3c-29249aa92920_rw_1920.jpg?h=751cf9fdab3ea959a3579c38026e854e)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Valerian Izyumov  (http://url=https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=324631.msg15584949#msg15584949)<br/><strong>Timeline:</strong>Week three<br/><strong>Where:</strong>Guild District, various locations<br/><strong>Status:</strong>Round 5: New minions, praise / condemn actions.<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Shanira Treyan, Mother Freya (mentioned)<br/><hr/>The lead gargoyle wasn’t the largest of its kind. It was, however, the most unsettling.<br/><br/>Valerian could almost forgive the palace staff for getting rid of it. Almost. The creature wasn’t particularly big, nor did it appear any older than its counterparts, but it exuded an uneasy air of frozen malice. The claws were as wicked as a razor’s edge, and yet even they lacked the menace of the creature’s fangs, exposed as they were in its unmoving snarl, the features locked in an expression of disfiguring contempt. It was repulsive and frightening. It was primordially sinister in the way of tropical spiders or desert scorpions - of any creature whose greatest defence and most ardent desire was simply to be left alone.<br/><br/>“I belong to regiment of irregulars,” Valerian began. “We are used to recruiting from, ah, unorthodox sources. I am authorised to make offer to you and your peers.”<br/><br/>The creature didn’t move. It didn’t have to: when Valerian had climbed onto the rooftop and inched along the masonry’s gutter to find the gargoyle, the thing had already been facing the right way, as if expecting him. There wasn’t room to sit on the lofty precipice, so Valerian merely folded his arms, and leaned back against the wall. It was nearing midnight, but the moon was bright, and Hexville was cosmopolitan enough that the distant lights provided an impressive vista at such an elevated vantage point.<br/><br/>”I will get to point, yes? This city needs more protectors. It needs a proper garrison. Gargoyles know this city better than anyone else. Also very gifted lookouts and sentries. Maybe even more so than me… but, ah, only maybe, heh. I want you to work for city. Or rather, I want you to<em>keep</em>working for city, only this time with pay and recognition. Gargoyles have always been guardians of building, but now, they can be guardians of all buildings.”<br/><br/>Gargoyles were patient creatures… but they were also wary. They spent much of their time being ignored, and more recently, they had been thrown aside like unwanted scrap. Nobody had stood up for them when the Princess’s whims had called for their eviction. Now, here was Valerian, asking for favours and pretending it was all some amazing offer. He couldn’t really blame the gargoyle for being unresponsive.<br/><br/>”I don’t pretend this is big favour for you. You need city to live in, yes, but the city need you more than you need city. The watch do their best, is true. They are trying hard, more than anyone else in Hexville… but, ah, we demand too much of them. While they are only ones trying to clean mess up, everyone else make things worse, because they see opportunity in chaos. I should know. I was same. Too late, I realise I need to save city before I can save world.”<br/><br/>The gargoyle didn’t respond. Even armed with every fact and logical certainty to the contrary, it was hard for Valerian to shake the feeling that he’d somehow got the wrong gargoyle - that the thing he was speaking to really was inanimate stone. It gave a false sense of being alone, up on the rooftop that night. Perhaps that was why he found himself speaking aloud, as his gaze drifted towards the slums. Even at such a distance, the newly-restored fountain gleamed in the moonlight.<br/><br/>”I worry about what is happening in slums. Untrained person can’t perform medicine, or build bridge, or sail ship. Nobody would expect them to. And yet, there is great perception that untrained person can fight - that they somehow<em>work it out</em>if there are big group of them. Ah, I’ve seen it. Mobs of peasants turned to offal on battlefield, and for what? To use up a few arrows? To tire out a few knights? It is… unfair use of life. I worry about slum mob… a little because of people they might hurt, and a lot because they are going to<em>get</em>hurt.”<br/><br/>The gargoyle stared impassively, motionless.<br/><br/>”Well, think on offer,” Valerian said, turning to leave. ”That is all …”<br/><br/><em>FANGS</em><br/><br/>It was a small miracle Valerian didn’t fall from his lofty perch, and even that was only achieved through a wild scrabble and windmilling arms. Silently, impossibly, a second gargoyle had taken up station right behind his head, hanging from the sloping stonework. He couldn’t begin to guess how long it had been there, perched just the slightest fraction beyond his field of view, waiting for him to turn around. It too was frozen mid-snarl, its face twisted in an expression of fury - or perhaps, merely warning. Its clawed hand gripped a slate tile, the surface bearing a statement etched by razor-sharp claws.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: courier;">Yes</span><br/><br/><hr/><br/><em>Overnight, etched murals appear on the outside of the palace walls, seamlessly worked into the curves and buttresses of the fortification as if they’d always been there. One depicts <strong>Shanira Treyan</strong>, the watch officer instantly recognisable by a shaded stripe running down her face. She stands at the head of a patrol, her comrades battered but straight-backed, as the unit marches down some nameless alleyway. Shadowy figures and sinister silhouettes cower and flee before their approach, while a sunburst rises behind the watch patrol. <br/>Elsewhere, a second mural depicts <strong>Mother Freya</strong>. Dressed in a hooded robe, her features are half-hidden, but one can see that her face is turned towards the sky with an angular, cruel smile on her lips. Below her feet lie broken and bloodied bodies of the poor, feeble knives and clubs in hand, their shattered corpses heaped up into piles to make a conveniently elevated path. The grisly road leads to a bloodstained throne, or rather the wretched remains of one. <br/><br/>Given the location and skill involved, the murals were clearly created by master stoneworkers who could not only fly, but were also familiar intimately with the palace… which, frankly, doesn’t leave many suspects. It wouldn’t take long to connect the dots: it’s public knowledge that Valerian has recently recruited the palace’s displaced gargoyles to form a garrison, his point-blank refusal to condemn the artwork is, at the very least, outright complicity.</em><br/>