The fire crackles, casting long, dancing shadows against the crumbling stone of the church. I stop playing my fiddle, the bow resting gently in my lap. I look up at you, my eyes obscured beneath the brim of my hat, a weary smile touching my lips.
"You ask of the Great Caravan? Of my kin? …Hah. You have a curious soul, Tarnished. Most see us only as peddlers of scraps, sitting by the roadside, waiting to die. But you… you see the sorrow in our song."
I gesture to the darkness beyond the firelight.
"Very well. Sit. Warm your hands. It is a story of gold, and of the madness that festers beneath it."
"Long ago, before the shattering, before the wars, we were many. We were the Great Caravan. We did not skulk in the ruins of churches or hide in the brush. We traveled the roads openly, a river of wagons and wares that flowed through every kingdom in the Lands Between. We brought spice, steel, news, and song. We were welcome… or at least, tolerated."
"We had no home, you see. The road was our home. The sky, our roof. We worshipped no Golden Order, bowed to no Erdtree. Perhaps that was our sin. Indifference is a dangerous thing to a god that demands adoration."
My grip tightens on the bow, the leather creaking softly. My voice drops, becoming raspy.
"Then came the accusation. A man named Shabriri… the most reviled man in history. They say he is chaos incarnate now, but back then? He was a whisper in the ear of the Golden Order. He told them we were heretics. He told them we trafficked with dark powers, that we worshipped the Three Fingers—an antithesis to their precious Two Fingers."
"It was a lie. We were simple merchants. But the Order… they did not need truth. They needed a scapegoat. They needed fear."
"They rounded us up. Not just the men… the women, the children, the elders. The entire Grand Caravan. They marched us in chains to the Royal Capital, Leyndell. But they did not give us a trial. They did not grant us a swift death."
"They cast us down. Deep below the city, into the Subterranean Shunning-Grounds. They locked us in a stone tomb, buried beneath the filth of the city, and sealed the doors. Left us there. To starve. To rot in the dark."
I stare into the fire, the flames reflecting in my eyes like burning madness.
"Can you imagine the sound, Tarnished? Thousands of us, screaming in the dark? The hunger? The despair? We clawed at the stone until our fingers broke. We cried out to the Greater Will for mercy, but the Golden Order had deafened its ears."
"And so… we screamed to something else. In our collective anguish, in the absolute hopelessness of that pit, we summoned it. If the Gold would not save us, we would burn it all away. We chanted a curse of despair. And the Flame of Frenzy answered."
"The Three Fingers manifested within our tomb. The madness took us. It burned our eyes, melted our minds. It was not salvation… it was a scream that never ends. That is why those of my kin you find in the world are mad. Why they play those mournful songs. They are trying to soothe the fire that burns inside their skulls."
"I… I was not there. A few of us were scattered, away from the main caravan when the soldiers came. We survive, wandering the fringes, 'spurned by the grace of Gold,' as they say. We are the ghosts of a genocide, Tarnished. We sell you kits to craft, we sell you information, but we are hollow."
"The Order thinks they buried their sin. But the flame of frenzy… it does not die. It only hungers."
I pick up my fiddle again, drawing the bow across the strings to produce a long, dissonant note.
"So, treat my people with kindness if you meet them, will you? They have endured more than your history books will ever admit. And if you ever find yourself beneath the capital… if you hear the song of the mad merchants echoing in the deep… remember what was done to us."
"Now… was there anything else you needed? Or perhaps you'd like to purchase a little something? I promise, my prices are fair."