Sortition: Dolor Rado | Glowfic Constellation

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When she was growing up, Dolor always knew that Cheliax's problems stemmed from lawlessness. The taxes were high, yes, but people could bear them if there weren't so many bandits and monsters about, and if the tax collectors stopped skimming off the top. And all the other petty corruptions - guards tracking down pretty girls to slake their lusts instead of standing watch or dealing with crime, the local deacon who decided who to report to his superiors based on who paid him the most money... what they needed was the iron fist of authority to sort them out. She wasn't smart enough to be a wizard, but she hadn't really wanted it anyway - how could going off to the city and spending years poring over books just to end up another pathetic teacher with no influence over anyone other than children compare to the army? They were, she knew, a cut apart from the rabble that made up the guards - they battled the real dangers like demons at the wound and monsters in the forest, not just whoever had a face that annoyed the local sheriff. She would join, prove herself, and work her way up the ranks, until she was trusted by her superiors when she told them all about what had been going on here behind the government's back, and then she would go on to bring that same discipline everywhere else.

The chelish army tended to prefer male recruits, but most women aren't nearly as strong as she was - strong enough to hike around in heavy armor with her weapons and a pack full of supplies for hours on end - and those that are as good a shot with a crossbow are even rarer. She got in, the recruiter accepted another bribe not to conscript a family now that they could make up the numbers without, and she went off to training.

The problems with the army are the same as the problems with everywhere else. The sergeants are corrupt, the soldiers unmotivated, the officers incompetent. The work is less dealing with the world's problems, and more of the same nonsense she saw in the petty militias and guards. The pay is shit, too - less so for Dolor than most, since she doesn't waste her pay on alcohol or whores or gambling, and takes enough care of her gear she has to pay less for replacements, but she's still not breaking even month to month. You're supposed to make up for it with extorting people and taking bribes, and she's not naive enough now to think of that as anything other than a purposeful policy decision. People say that the fighting at the worldwound is different, or that the hellknights are the real lawful organizations, but she's learned better by now. The whole edifice is rotten to the core. Perhaps in another life, she might have replaced her old purpose with a new one, and dedicated herself to it with the same zeal she once had for Cheliax, but the goddess is busy and doesn't have time for every chelish soldier who might make a decent pickup. Instead she collects cynicism and spite like they're old friends, and spends several years in the army getting her idealism ground down to a bitter core of hatred before the last straw breaks and she's an outlaw. She tries focusing her efforts on the worst of the offenders, at first, and is helped along by the fact that they're often the most careless about their security and least likely to be missed, but it's not long before any servant of the chelish crown is her target. Twice she oversteps her means, and has to flee into the swamps to escape the searches, and it's several wet and miserable months before she makes a return to her work.

A more foolish sort might think this ended with the four days war, but while there was some part of her that dared to hope, day in and day out the Chelish state continued much as it always had. The same corrupt hacks in the local guards, the same abuses of the soldiers - the only difference is the asmodean priest who pretended not to see any of the Lawlessness is replaced by nobody at all, and if she likes the honesty better than the hypocrisy it doesn't make the system any less broken.

In the end, the sortition comes as a surprise - when she saw a wizard teleport on top of her, she was pretty sure this was the government finally putting a stop to her. Instead, someone had decided she would make a useful pawn in whatever political game they were playing in westcrown. She didn't kid herself about the actual randomness of the sortition process, but if the role the archmage had for her to play in his game was one with real power, well. She wasn't going to pass it up even if she had the choice.