The Pearl of Sorrow

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''THE PEARL OF SORROW'' //An interactive narrative sample. Playtime: approx 10 minutes.// --- Two divine forces contend for the souls of mankind: ''THUNGU'', god of strict tradition and ancestral worship, and ''THE DREAMER'', a new god from across the cosmic deep. You are a sellsword, wandering the depths of a ruined underground kingdom, seeking a legendary treasure. This side-quest offers a brief diversion from your journey. Your quest begins as you enter the ''Beggar's Quarter'' of the old town. [[Begin|Beggar's Quarter]]

Rats flee your footfalls, skittering over wet stone. Small clay shrines crowd the walls of the narrow alleyway. Hundreds of them, stacked and crumbling. An old woman sits upon a stool outside a small doorway, gnarled hands rhythmically working a string of smooth prayer beads. She lifts her gaze, and a cautious smile creases her weathered features. "Skin and bone, reeking of the surface. How long since you last tasted a hot meal, stranger?" [["Too long, I dare say."|Meal Scene]] [["I'm not here to rest."|Meal Scene Cold]] [[Say nothing. Keep walking.|Meal Scene Called Back]]

Her smile widens as she nods, and gestures towards the open door. "Come. I have a fresh cut of meat, and it has been long indeed since I shared my table." //I've broken bread in fouler dens. And broken bones in halls far grander.// [[Follow her in.|Utunde's Home]]

Her smile vanishes, and a cold chill sets into her voice. "No one comes to the Beggar's Quarter to rest, stranger. They come because they have nowhere else to crawl." With visible effort, she rises, prayer beads clacking softly, and disappears into the open door behind her. //I've broken bread in fouler dens. And broken bones in halls far grander.// [[Follow her in.|Utunde's Home]]

Ignoring her, you stride past. Presently, the clack of prayer beads follows you down the alley. "Stranger. In Thungu's name, //wait//, stranger!" All warmth has left her voice. A brittle note of desperation cuts through. "I can pay. Whatever your price... I can pay." [[Turn back, and follow her.|Utunde's Home]]

The old woman's hovel is cramped and unusually warm. Dust lies thick upon every surface. A cookfire crackles in the corner, and the scent of roasting meat hangs heavy in the air. She sets an earthen plate upon an old oak table, and gestures for you to sit. Goat meat, peppers, and a tankard of ale. "Eat. I will talk." [[Eat.|Utunde's Story]]

"I am Utunde, I have dwelt in this quarter since I was a girl." Utunde watches you chew, and chuckles wryly as you drain the stale contents of the tankard in a single pull. "A fierce appetite. My son was the same. His name was Yakeme. Thungu keep his soul." Her smile fades. "Three months past, my boy left for the Rootgarden, down below this quarter. He never returned." She refills your cup with more sour ale. "I know that my son is dead. Ògùnmà, the thing that stalks the garden kills all who trespass, and harvests their memories. It tears them out and seals them in pearls. Hundreds of them hang from the roots of that place, like festering fruit. Yakeme's memory is among them." She leans back, studying you through the gloom. "I am an old woman. I cannot descend into the garden to reclaim Yakeme's pearl. But you..." Her eyes rest pointedly on your sword and scabbard. "You have the look of one who has slain that which needed slaying." [["How much coin is this pearl worth to you?"|Payment]] [["What do you want with the pearl?"|Deflection]] [["What was your boy doing in the Rootgarden?"|Backstory]]

"I have cowries. Not many, but every coin shall be yours if you succeed." "And this, I give to you now, to aid in your task..." The old woman produces a small flask from beneath her tattered robes. A clouded glass, stopped with red wax. "Mother's Milk. A draught to steel your flesh and wreathe your sword in Thungu's blessed flame." She sets it between you, next to the gnawed bones of your meal. "Beyond that... a mother's gratitude is all I can offer. You have a mother of your own, do you not?" [["Tell me of this Rootgarden."|Rootgarden Info]] [["I'll find this pearl."|Accept Quest]]

"What any mother wants. To hold her child again. And if Thungu denies me that, then a memory of him will suffice." Her voice cracks on those last words. [["How much coin is this pearl worth to you?"|Payment]] [["I am no fool. I will have the truth."|Insistence]] [["What was he doing in the Garden?"|Backstory]]

"Bah! Some girl filled Yakeme's head full of nonsense. About the soul. Talk that the Dreamer offers life eternal. The truth is, stranger, my son was a... a heretic." A flicker crosses her face. //Not grief. Disapproval.// Gone as quick as it came. "But he was my son. Whatever foul creed tainted him in life, his soul belongs with his blood." [["How much coin is this pearl worth to you?"|Payment]] [["I'll find this pearl."|Accept Quest]]

"Good. Then we have a contract." Utunde spits, and clasps your hand in hers, pressing something hard into your palm. A portrait, its likeness delicately carved in yellowed ivory. A young man's face stares back at you. Eyes defiant, like hers, but tempered by kindness. "This is Yakeme. The pearl will echo his image." She stands and draws open the door, and the cool breath of night steals through the chamber. "Akama's Passage lies at the end of the lower corridor. Seek the dry well, and the road below shall reveal it." She holds your gaze a moment longer than feels comfortable. "Bring my son back to me." [[Descend into Akama's Passage.|Akama's Passage]]

"That //is// the truth, stranger. I want my son's memory. Must desire always hide some dark design?" She meets your eyes, unblinking. [["Let's talk coin, then."|Payment]] [["Tell me of this Rootgarden."|Rootgarden Info]]

"The Rootgarden lies beneath the Beggar's Quarter. Through Akama's Passage, carved into the earth long before any living soul can remember." She draws a crooked line on the table, sending pale motes drifting through still air. "Once, it was a place of joy, where our people offered sacrifice to Thungu. Now Ògùnmà, servant of the heretic Dreamer nests there." "He keeps watch of the pearls. Hundreds of memories, hanging from the roots of the great Pama tree. Do not touch them. They are not yours to covet." She taps the table once. "Ògùnmà keeps to the deep garden. A grotto, beyond a lake of standing water. You will know it by the smell of death. All that lies within Ògùnmà's domain dies." [["I'll find your son's pearl."|Accept Quest]]

The passage draws tight about you. Its stone walls are slick with moisture, and the roots the old woman spoke of pulse beneath the surface like veins under skin. Wedged between a tangled mass, half-buried in calcite and grime, you notice a pearl. Small. Dull. The portrait sealed within is faded, and difficult to discern, so you look closer... //It is not Yakeme's pearl. The portrait within does not match the boy's likeness.// //But it is a pearl.// [[Leave it. Keep moving.|The Rootgarden]] [[Inspect it.|Inspect Pearl]]

The Rootgarden stretches out below you, a drowned cathedral of pulsing roots, rotted trees, and putrid black water. Utunde did not lie. Hundreds of pearls hang from the twisted roots of a monstrous Pama tree at the garden's heart, each one glowing faintly. They sway there like ornaments upon some blasphemous altar. Something stirs in the deep garden. The water ripples. [[Move toward the Pama tree.|The Pama Tree]]

Crouching, you work it free from the roots. The thing is lighter than you expected. You hold it beside the ivory portrait Utunde gave you, and see the lie of it immediately. Different eyes. Different jawline. But the pearl is old and timeworn. And if the face it bears were marred further... //The old woman might never know the difference.// [[Score the surface with your blade. Obscure the features.|Deface Pearl]] [[Put it back. It is not yours to covet.|The Rootgarden]]

You draw your knife and set the blade hard against the pearl's scarred surface. Once. Twice, leaving deep gouges in the pale nacre. You regard your handiwork. What remains of the face held within the pearl could belong to anyone. //Could be anyone. Could be her son.// The Rootgarden awaits, as does the creature, Ògùnmà. //Do I risk dying for a dead man's memory when the living are so easily fooled?// [[Return to Utunde. Convince her the defaced pearl is her son's.|False Return]] [[Drop the pearl. Continue to the Rootgarden.|The Rootgarden]]

Utunde opens the door even before you can knock. Her eyes open wide at the sight of you. "Back... so soon? Did the beast prove too great a challenge?" "It was no easy task, old woman. But I have returned with your son's pearl." She studies your face as she extends a trembling hand. You place the defaced pearl in her palm. Her fingers close around it. She holds it to the flame, turning it slowly. The ruined surface catches the firelight. "By Thungu's grace!" she exclaims, falling to her knees. "But I... I cannot see his face. The Rootgarden was not kind to him," she whispers. "No. It was not." She presses the pearl to her breast and closes her eyes. When she opens them, they are wet with tears. "You have done a mother a kindness, stranger. It will not be forgotten. By all I hold sacred, I swear it." She pushes a pouch of cowries across the table. You take it. [[Leave.|False Ending]]

You step back into the Beggar's Quarter. The cowries clink in your purse. The contract is fulfilled. The old woman has what she wanted. As do you. //What she needed. Not what she wanted.// The passage back to the upper levels is quiet. --- //In the days that follow, Utunde discovers the pearl is not her son's. The grief does not break her. It //hardens// her.// //You have made an enemy who knows your face, and the path you walk.// //She will find you again, and hunt you relentlessly.// ''ENDING UNLOCKED: A MOTHER'S LOVE'' [[Return to start.|START]]

The roots of the great tree are as thick as a man's waist. As you press closer toward the tree, you can make out the portraits in the pearls. One by one, you compare each face to the bone portrait. //None are Yakeme.// Then, a voice issues from the dark water. "Another seeker. Another errand-dog sent by dying gods." The water parts. Ògùnmà rises from the shallows. Once, he was a priest of Thungu, but centuries bent in worship to the Dreamer have remade him into something inhuman. Roots curl through his ragged body. His eyes are pearls, milky and white. And within one... Yakeme. "The boy is mine to keep. Given //freely// to the Dreamer, as all things should be. His mother clings to the old ways. I offered him //freedom//." [["My blade will free him."|Confront Ogunma]] [["Talk all you want. I've been paid to kill you."|Confront Ogunma]] [["What do you mean, 'given freely'?"|Ogunma Explains]]

The fight is savage. Roots lash upward from black water. With every blow, the pearls on the Pama tree ring like funeral bells. You best the monster. When it ends, Ògùnmà dissolves into the black water. His last words bubble up from the deep: "The boy chose //freedom//. Remember that... when the mother would bind him in chains." His ruined body sinks into the muck. One pearl drifts up from the black water, and rolls to your feet. The face sealed within it matches the portrait. //Yakeme.// [[Take the pearl.|Yakeme's Vision]]

Ògùnmà's mouth splits into a warped mockery of a smile. Roots writhe beneath the water. "The boy came to me. Begging. He had cast off his mother's god, her precious Thungu, yet knew not where else to turn." His pearl-white eyes fix on you. "I showed him the Dreamer. The dissolution of self into something //greater//. No more loneliness. No more choosing. He wept with gratitude." A pause. The water laps softly at your boots. "His mother wants to chain him. I would //free// him." //Two gods at war over a dead boy's soul.// [["Enough talk, I will end you."|Confront Ogunma]] [["His doubt is a dissonant voice in your choir. You know that."|Ogunma Persuade]]

The moment your fingers close around the pearl, the garden vanishes. --- You are in Utunde's hut. But it is different. Larger. You are different. You are Yakeme. You are kneeling. "Mother. Please." Your voice — //his// voice — cracks. "I don't want this. And I swear to you, I do not seek the Dreamer either. I ask only to walk my own path." Utunde stands over you. Her prayer beads click softly. Her shadow stretches far, falling over you. "The Eternal Binding has sustained our family for seven generations, my child. Your grandfather fed the old hunger. Your father fed it. You will feed it." "And if I refuse?" Her expression does not change. "You are my son. You do not refuse." --- The vision breaks. You are back in the Rootgarden, on your knees, the pearl in your clenched fist. //He wanted neither fate. Not Ògùnmà's dissolution. Not Thungu's chains. He wanted to be left alone. And neither of them would suffer it.// The pearl pulses in your hand, warm, heavy. Yakeme's face stares up at you from inside it. Utunde is waiting. [[Return to Utunde.|The Return]]

Utunde's home is... changed. The fire has been fed too high. The room is sweltering. Utunde stands at the old oak table. Upon it she has arranged her instruments: a curved knife, a shallow clay bowl, cloths stained dark with red. At the sight of the pearl in your hand, her composure cracks. Just for an instant. Hunger, not grief, flashes through. "You found him. You //found// him." She reaches for the pearl. "Quickly. Tonight the stars align for the Eternal Binding. Yakeme will join his ancestors at last. He will serve, as all our family has served. As tradition demands." [["Here. He is yours."|Ending Give Pearl]] [["He did not want this. You know that."|Ending Confront]] [["No."|Ending Refuse]] [[Crush the pearl in your fist.|Ending Destroy]]

"You say he came to you when he had nowhere else to turn?" Ògùnmà's eyes narrow. "He did." "Then his voice is not yours. It is //his//. A man who flees one god only to fall into the jaws of another is no true convert. He's a refugee. There will always be doubt in his heart." The water goes still. For a long while, Ògùnmà says nothing. "You believe his doubt would... poison my choir?" "As do you. That is why you sealed him in a pearl instead of giving him wholly to dissolution. He does not //belong// in your chorus." The roots beneath the water convulse. Ògùnmà's body shudders. "...Take it. Take the dissonant voice. Let his mother bind him in her chains. It matters not to the Dreamer. The sea does not miss a single drop of rain." The creature plucks the pearl from its eye socket and casts it at your feet. //Yakeme.// [[Take the pearl.|Yakeme's Vision]]

You place the pearl in her palm. Her fingers close around it like a trap snapping shut. "Thank you, stranger. You have honored the old ways." She turns to the table and begins the ritual. The curved knife gleams in the firelight. The binding cloth unravels in her hands. You leave before she begins. You have no wish to see what comes next. The cowries lie on the table by the door. You take them, and leave. --- //Yakeme's soul is bound to Thungu's service. He will feed the old hunger, as his father did, as his grandfather did. As Utunde will, when her time comes.// //The contract is fulfilled.// ''ENDING UNLOCKED: OLD CHAINS'' [[Return to start.|START]]

"He did not want this, Utunde. I saw it in the pearl. He begged you to let him walk his own path. And you refused him." Her face goes utterly still. "You saw... the memory?" "He rejected Thungu. He rejected the Dreamer. He wanted to belong to //himself//." A silence stretches. The fire crackles softly. "You could not understand," she whispers, at last. "Without the Binding, his soul wanders lost." "That was his choice." Her gaze falls to the pearl in your hand. Then to the knife on the table. Then to her own hands, old and trembling. When she speaks again, her voice has dwindled to almost nothing. "...Give me the pearl. Not for the Binding. Only... let me hold him. One last time." [[Give her the pearl.|Ending Confront Resolution]] [[Keep it. She can't be trusted.|Ending Refuse]]

"No." "No?" "The pearl stays with me. He did not want your ritual. He did not want the Dreamer's either. I am not handing him to anyone." Her grief curdles. The prayer beads click faster in her hand. "You would //steal// a mother's child? You are no different from Ògùnmà. No better!" "Perhaps. But I listened when the boy spoke." You slip the pearl into your pocket, and turn toward the door. Utunde does not move to stop you. You can feel her hatred on your back. "I will not forget your face, stranger." The cowries lie on the table by the door. You take them as you leave. --- //You carry Yakeme's pearl with you on your journey.// //You have made an enemy who knows your face, and the path you walk.// //She will find you again, and hunt you relentlessly.// ''ENDING UNLOCKED: THE SOVEREIGN SOUL'' [[Return to start.|START]]

You close your fist hard around the pearl. It resists for a moment. Then, it shatters. Light bleeds between your fingers. Then it's gone. Utunde screams. Not in grief. In //rage//. "What have you DONE?!" "What your son asked of me." She lunges for the broken fragments, but there is nothing left. Only dust. "His soul... without the pearl, without the Binding... he belongs to nothing. //Nothing//." "There are those who would call that freedom." She stares at you. The fire dies in her eyes. "Leave this place." The cowries lie on the table by the door. You take them. And leave. --- //Yakeme's soul scatters. No Thungu. No Dreamer. No binding of any kind. Whether this is liberation or obliteration, you cannot say.// //Utunde remains in the Beggar's Quarter. She does not pursue you. She does not sharpen her blade. She sits at her table, in the too-warm room, and stares at the spot where the pearl shattered.// //Something in her has broken. Whether it will heal into something better or something worse, you will never know.// ''ENDING UNLOCKED: DUST TO DUST'' [[Return to start.|START]]

You place the pearl in her open hand. Gently. She holds it to the light. Yakeme's face stares back at her. Defiant, even in death. "He has your jaw." She laughs. //A genuine laugh.// "He has his father's jaw. He has //my// stubbornness." She sets the knife aside. Folds the binding cloth. One by one, she puts the tools of the rite away. "I will not perform the Binding." She places the pearl on the shrine among the family portraits. "Thank you, stranger. For forcing my eyes to see what my heart would not." The cowries lie on the table by the door. You take them, and leave. --- //Utunde keeps the pearl upon her family shrine. She prays to Thungu still, but honors her son's final wish.// //Yakeme's soul rests.// //Down here, that is as close to peace as any soul may come.// ''ENDING UNLOCKED: LET HIM REST'' [[Return to start.|START]]