The late morning sun shines through the window of a cheap apartment. The floor is covered in sheets of paper, all laid out in neat rows. Sprawled on the floor, asleep among the papers, is a young man of around seventeen years. A bit tieflingish, but only a bit, hair is curly and long enough to hide the little horns from casual observation.
Waking up with a start, nearly knocking over a vial of ink, he starts his morning.
Eventually the Vile Scribe's incoherent mumbling of complaint at the sun will resolve into a more clear "Wrack and ruin, fell asleep vile scribing again. Late, late, late."
Crawling over to a table and pulling himself to his feet, he blinks until he feels awake. Looking around, seems he got around halfway through copying before falling asleep. The blank paper and ink are all gathered and hidden under a loose floorboard. The finished copies are gathered and hidden in the inside pocket of an oversized jacket. Before leaving, he cleans his face with a damp cloth, checks himself in the reflection of a dish to make sure his hair still mostly covers the tiny horns, admires the almost-a-mustache that officially makes him too old to be an urchin, and puts on the jacket. Then out the door he goes.
Varanthe nags at Ione to take a look through his eyes at the room, in case she needs to find it later. Then he floats out the door after the scruffy fellow.
First stop, there's an old lady who sells hot buns smeared with butter. The price has somehow stayed the same, through the war and the grain riots and the convention. Gods protect her and give her a long life.
Second stop, a tavern that shares a wall with a laundry wizard who doesn't openly advertise printing. Third stop, a bookseller who still hasn't moved the good stuff from the secret back room, just in case. Fourth stop, an alleyway that until recently was named after Geryon. Etcetera, etcetera.
Now he's carrying several different types. Clearly this guy isn't the vile scribe, just someone who knows where to get all sorts of assorted dangerous pamphlets.
Mmmm buttered buns... right, stalking. Stalk stalk stalk. This sure is a lot of places with papers. He will dutifully send Ione an update at each new place with papers.
The bell rings. Late. Late for an important meeting. There's a scary eleven year old girl with a hat who has made it very clear that pamphlet sales go through her, and bad things will happen if he ever tries to sell directly to an urchin in her crew again.
He rushes into the abandoned* orphanage with apologies on his lips. "–No disrespect for your time at all intended, you're a respectable person of business with a very busy schedule, I know. Here's what I have for you today, thirty Westcrown Witness, fifteen Asmodeans in Blue, forty Vile Scribe..."
"No, no Badger. Yes I know you're after them. Would you have me in the sewers looking for the source myself? You can go, if one of us has to take the guise of a kobold you'd be better at it."
With that he's chased out of the building, though with pay for his paper.
*It was abandoned by the woman who worked there, the orphans run it themselves now.
Lunch break! After selling a bundle of pamphlets at a tavern, he sits down to get a bite to eat. They're having a political argument at that table there, he jumps in on the losing side but as soon as too many people start agreeing with him, he switches sides. Then that gets boring so he takes a third position of 'maybe letting halflings eat people is a good thing' and sees how far he can run with it. Eventually they agree that it's not the worst idea because at least it's less wasteful than feeding people to lions, and he counts that as a victory.
Varanthe does not have political opinions. He does not track the argument. He swipes a chicken wing off an unattended plate and once he has finished gnawing on it he floats around above the argument, chasing dust motes.
Once the argument is done, the rest of the afternoon is just disappointing. His contact in the guard doesn't have time to talk about any recent pamphlet related arrests, busy with the trial coming up soon. The temple of Shelyn isn't doing a reading today, or if it is he missed it. The wizard student who sells him ink and paper is raising the prices, blames the ports all being closed.
Wait there's a pamphlet! He finds a deserted alley and starts whispering to himself like a madman. 'Mercantilia: I wish to send my ships of sugar away before our king bans it. Razmir: I have closed the ports, you cannot send out your ships. Mercantilia: Why did you not just declare sugar illegal a week earlier and keep the ports open? ... gah, stuck...' Pacing back and forth, thinking. 'that's it! Razmir: It would be unfair to merchants selling things I don't want to ban. Okay just need to keep that memorized until I can write it down.'
Varanthe peeks into the alley and mentally bats at Ione until she listens in to the pamphlet composition process.
Well, if there’s nothing else to do this afternoon, he’ll find a soapbox to stand on and sell a few pamphlets himself. “Newsletters! Radicals! Satires! Buy now, while the pen’s still free!”
There’s usually other pamphletmongers nearby, which means he can trade, and ask which ones people are reading. Most of the money is in selling in bulk to other urchins or to taverns and cafes, but selling directly means he gets to see the faces people make when they read one of his.
Nearly done for the day. Just need to get through the stack before dark. Or he’ll run into robbers or, even worse, the watch. There’s still some people heading home from work, maybe they’ll buy something at half price.
“We’ll take a look at those.”
Where did these four guys come from. Why is one of them carrying a longsword?
Nope. The Vile Scribe ordinary pamphlet seller would like to jump off the soapbox and get away, now. Keep the papers.
One grabs his arm while another holds onto the pamphlets. “You know, temple of Iomedae don’t want her name in pamphlets. Said every single one is leading people to hell.”
Ione senses Varanthe's alert and tunes in. Good job Varanthe! This one might actually be a crime! Now... who's she supposed to alert if this guy gets stabbed?
This is not the first time something like this has happened, but there’s usually less of them and don’t usually get him by surprise. He’s worried about losing his edge. Also worried about getting stabbed. That too.
Don’t worry, they said murder is evil, so it probably won’t go that far.
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