Distant Bells

***Played by Lee***

Distant Bells is a Kenku Rogue, the newest of the playing characters. He is a skilled thief and cunning fighter, preferring to strike in unusual ways rather than head on confrontation.

UPDATED: During the end of the first Chafing Armor season, it was revealed the Distant Bells is in truth a were-raven under a curse. Released from the curse and magically augmented by Penton's mother, he now calls himself "Corvus Dragonchocked".

His backstory is below: You can hear the audio version of Distant Bell's backstory here.

My name is Mikkayla Manytongues. I work for the Massgate Archivists Guild, as a chronicler of the many events and people associated with the Kingdom. My own Elven heritage and interest in the variety of races within our Kingdom has led to my specialising in the recording of our non-human denizens.

The following is a record of an interview with one Distant Bells, a Kenku of some notoriety in the underbelly of the northern city of Zhentil Keep. This record needed several days to fully complete due to reasons outlined below.

The Kenku pose a unique problem for the Archivists Guild, in that they are devoid of their own form of speech, instead only able to communicate via mimicking what they have heard. It is because of this, that Kenku records are scarce. From what we know, they were cursed eons ago by their creators for their greed and avarice, and thus unlike most Avian races they do not have wings. The lack of individual speech though has lead to Kenku becoming naturally gifted mimics, often able to flawlessly mimic any voices or even noises they have heard. This natural gift sometimes crosses over to physical feats, including perfect looking forgeries of painting, writing, and even many smaller objects. This made them perfect fodder for slavery by many spell-casters, and although we outlawed slavery of all kinds within the Kingdom many years ago, it seems old habits die hard for some Wizards and the practice continues in secret today.

This record will be less regulation than normal due to the nature of Kenku communication. I will omit the many hours of fumbling as, despite my wealth of knowledge, I struggled to come to grips with the specifics of how Distant Bells communicated. But what follows is my submitted "Record of the Kenku Named Distant Bells"

Session 1

I entered the Bobcat's Paw, a small Inn beneath a Ye Chicken establishment, at sunset. The entry area was dimly lit and strangely bereft of many people, yet despite this, it still took me some time to find the subject of this record.

He sat in a booth furthest from the entrance, and at first glance seemed as a shadow more than a figure. However, he turned his head slightly toward me as I passed by his booth a fifth time, and the glint of his eye in the dim light caught my searching gaze. Upon noticing I had seen him, he stood and waited for me to take my seat across from him. He stood just shy of my own 5 foot 5 inches of height, and his visage resembled that of a raven. His feathers were of the deepest coal black yet the light seemed to cast an odd blue shine to them. His eyes were unique in that one of them was a dark grey colour matching his beak, and the other seemed almost garnet-like in colour. His armor was a simple studded leather vest that seems to have been darkened, and every so often I caught sight of his intriguing weapons beneath his cloak. Not wishing to seem overly interested in his appearance, I quickly sat down and began to ask him my questions.

He told me of his early life, growing up in a Wizard's Tower several miles north of Zhentil Keep as a child to an enslaved Kenku mother and three siblings, two sisters and a brother. He does not know his father, his mother did not speak of him. Within a year of hatching, he and his siblings had been manacled and were also enslaved to the man their mother worked for, of which Bells did not ever learn the name of *[Cross referencing this information with local history reveals this to be the Wizard Zerul, who has not been seen in nearly 10 years. Recommend sending a detachment of soldiers to Zerul Tower to arrest him on suspicion of slavery. -- Mikkayla Manytongues]* . The "master" was a cruel man, often punishing their mother for the mistakes of her children, and Distant Bells distinctly remembers an incident in which his mother was brutally beaten after one of his sisters, Hummingbird, refused the drunken advances of the man *[It should be noted here that Bells and his siblings were all only 6 years of age at this time. We know that with shorter lifespans on average Kenku mature rapidly, however this still puts Hummingbird, at my estimation to be about 10-12 years old in human lifespans. If Zerul is indeed arrested and found guilty of these accusations, it is of my opinion that he be summarily and publicly executed. -- Mikkayla Manytongues]* and when his mother intervened she was beaten to near lifelessness. Bells isn't sure, but he believes the injuries she sustained defending her daughter are the reason she died a few months later.

*[At this point, Bells stands and without another word he leaves. Due to the nature of what he had just described to me, I respectfully let him go. -- Mikkayla Manytongues]*

Session 2

Same as yesterday evening, Bells was in the booth furthest from the door. He made to stand again as I approached, but I simply nodded and took my place across from him, opening my logbook and asking him to resume telling his story.

A year after his mothers passing, the 'master' left the tower as usual to gather magical supplies here in Zhentil Keep. It was at least 2 days journey by horse, in which Bells and his siblings, now considered to be broken-in slaves, were left to continue their duties at the Tower. However, Bells had not been merely passive in his slavery, he had in fact been secretly teaching himself about poisons and toxins, and on the evening of the 'master' returning, Bells laced his food with a powerful soporific that rendered the cruel spell-caster deeply asleep within an hour of having eaten. Bells had also memorised the specific phrase that allowed passage in and out of the tower, and when the 'master' was asleep, Bells gathered up supplies for them all, stole a rather large quantity of gold, and he used the passphrase to grant himself and his siblings freedom from the Tower. They were 8 years old and alone in a remote section of the northern wilds, yet Bells divided up the supplies in favour of his siblings, said he was headed to Zhentil Keep, and entrusted his brother, Boiling Cauldron, to take Hummingbird and their other sister Rain-on-Flagstones far away where they could be safe. Bells says that was the last time he saw them but within his heart he knows Cauldron succeeded and they are all safe and well *[Note: While the whereabouts of Cauldron and Hummingbird are still unknown, Rain-on-Flagstones works as a painter in the Artisan Quarter of Massgate. She is happily paired to a gnomish sculptor, and they are set to wed on her 17th birthday. -- Mikkayla Manytongues]*

Bells made his way to Zhentil Keep on foot, travelling only at night and stopping to camp during the day. He kept to the side of the road, always being sure to remain out of sight wherever possible. He ate berries and wild root vegetables where he could find them, and camped among the rocks in the crisp mountain air during the day. He spent the last night of the journey in the Bunting outside Zhentil Keep, and it was there he met a Tiefling named Ynaskyr with whom he formed a fast friendship. Ynaskyr was a few years older than Bells, yet he treated him as an equal, showing him the Smugglers route into the city, setting him up with a place to live, and mentoring him in the finer points of thievery. The two began to live quite well in the old sewer spillways beneath the city when they started doing bigger jobs.

*[Bells excused himself from the booth as if to use the latrine, however I waited a good hour and he did not return. Frustrated, I packed up and left, hoping he could explain himself the next evening. -- Mikkayla Manytongues]*

Session 3

Bells is late, and enters the Inn short of breath. He apologizes, saying he overslept. He does not mention his sudden disappearance last night, and something about his demeanour gives me pause and I decided not to ask. He continues his tale.

When Bells was 12 years old he met a young half-elf girl called Synarael during a job in the Merchants Quarter. She caught him trying to unlock a chest in her room inside her house, but rather than call for the guards Synarael instead said she would open the chest for him and he could have one thing from inside it. The chest turned out to be the storage for her small-clothes, and without wanting to show her he has made a mistake, Bells solemnly took a pair of silk bloomers and secreted them away inside a pouch inside his cloak. Without skipping a beat, Synarael smiled and let Bells go, whispering in his ear as he left that she would be waiting for him to return her underwear the next night. She was true to her word, and this encounter led to a clandestine but passionate young courtship between the two of them. Synarael taught him the finer points of appraisal, tips on how to disguise himself, and even helped him find ways to use his mimicry as a disarming means of resolving (or starting) arguments. She taught him social decorum and gave him a length of silver cord to practise escaping bonds and his rope skills with.

When Bells was 14, Synarael surprised him with a gift of his two daggers. Blades shaped like feathers, hilts wrapped in blackened leather with an intricate filigree cut design resembling feathers, and pommels shaped like raven heads. They were of exquisite make, and on the cross guards of both is stamped "Bells + Synarael". She presented the daggers to him wrapped in the underwear he had stolen the night they met, and since then they have never left Bells' belt *[I jokingly enquired as to whether or not he still had the underwear too, and while it is hard to read Bells' facial expressions, his silence was heavy with laughter. -- Mikkayla Manytongues]*.

Sadly, a year later Synarael was killed during a fire that tore through the Merchants Quarter and took many innocent lives *[Note: It is on record that the fire was started by a resident of the Noble Quarter who claimed to have seen "uncultured scum" in the Merchant Quarter and was trying to "send a message". The Noble was not convicted, lending credence to the widespread rumour Zhentil Keep is an unwelcome place for any that do not fit a certain "look". -- Mikkayla Manytongues]*. Grief took hold of Bells, and he sold nearly all his possessions and anonymously donated the money to the Church helping the families of victims of the fire. Keeping a small sum for himself, he had a new cloak made, one that had the silver cord Synarael had given him in it as an edging. The cloak was made to look ragged and torn, and on the outer facing side it is a dark grey colour to blend into the darkness and break up his silhouette. However, what nobody knows is that the inside lining has Synarael's laughing face embroidered in it, in a thread barely a different colour to that of the fabric. He keeps her memory as close as he can at all times.

Bells grunts and stands. A talon extends from beneath his cloak and I take it almost automatically. His grasp is incredibly gentle for having razor sharp talons, yet there is a strength and power in it too, and I begin to understand why Synarael took such a shining to him. He bows his head and requests to leave. There are many more questions I have, yet it occurs to me that this is a different Bells than the one I met two nights prior. He is requesting permission to leave, rather than just leaving abruptly. It's clear something has changed between us, and as he releases my arm I find a rolled up note in my hand. He turns, his cloak whipping around and suddenly he is gone, a ghost in the shadows of the evening. I wait a few moments, and then retire to my room to read the note he pressed into my palm.

It's a strange note, that seems to be written in a weird form of Draconic. I have added the note to this record, however I will add here the best translation I could muster as the final section of this record. The note reads:

"Find the man who walks as a bear *[could also be "bear who walks as a man", it's difficult to tell. -- Mikkayla Manytongues]* and kill him. Bring the body to us for it must be destroyed. *[There is more here, but I cannot make it out. Maybe the Archivists will have a better chance. -- Mikkayla Manytongues]*

This ends the Record of the Kenku Named Distant Bells, gathered, compiled and annotated by the Arch-Magister of the Massgate Archivists Guild, Mikkayla Manytongues.

Fun Fact: Lee originally considered naming Distant Bells "Nevermore", but felt it was too "on the nose"!