Bluepearl

Bluepearl was a Napan squad mage in the Bridgeburners. Picker saw him as "a pigeon-toed Napan who shaved his head and pretended to airs of vast knowledge concerning the Warren of Ruse".^[1] He also was skilled in the Mockra Warren, although he hated using it because it chewed everything in his skull to pulp.^[2]

Bluepearl was described as "amusingly awkward [and] kind of wide-eyed."^[3] He felt sick whenever fellow mage, Toes, kissed one of the mummified toes he kept strung around his neck.^[4]

In Memories of Ice

By the time of the Pannion War, Bluepearl was one of the Bridgeburners' last surviving mages. He and the other mages, Quick Ben, Spindle, Shank, and Toes, were often seen together talking with Captain Ganoes Paran.^[1]

After the Siege of Capustan, the Bridgeburners were secretly sent ahead to Coral to reconnoiter the Pannion Seer's city. They established their camp among the network of unmanned trenches and tunnels the Pannion Domin had built on the forested slopes north of the city. When Septarch Ultentha sent a company of Beklites and Urdomen to man the trenches, the mages prepared for combat. Bluepearl "loaned" Shank a spell for a ritual Shank designed to target the Seerdomin mage leading the company. When executed, it caused the Seerdomin's lungs to fill with water and drown.^[5]

During the Siege of Coral, Dujek sent the Bridgeburners into the city by Quorl under the cover of darkness. Their mission was to attack the keep of the Pannion Seer while the High Fist led the rest of the army into the city itself.^[6] Hedge and his sappers destroyed a tower with Moranth munitions to gain entrance to the keep while Picker's squad fought K'ell Hunters in the streets. Bluepearl was among the few Bridgeburners to survive the subsequent battle in the keep against the Seer's Urdomen.

After the battle, Dujek allowed Bluepearl and the remaining Bridgeburners to secretly retire as had been Whiskeyjack's wish.^[7] The mage went to Darujhistan where several of his comrades used their accumulated back pay to establish K'rul's Bar.^[8]

In The Bonehunters

Quick Ben told Fiddler and Kalam Mekhar that contrary to reports there had been some survivors in Coral and named Bluepearl as one of those now living in Darujhistan.^[9]

In Toll the Hounds

Bluepearl was a regular at K'rul's Bar in Darujhistan, which was now owned by the surviving Bridgeburners. On a night of the Gedderone Fête, he and Antsy survived an attack in the streets by the Assassins' Guild who had been contracted to kill all the Bridgeburners by Humble Measure.^[10] While out shopping for wine, they spotted a suspicious pair following them, so Bluepearl created a drunken illusion of himself and Antsy some distance away from their true location. When the assassins sprang on the decoys, Antsy stabbed one through the neck, while Bluepearl grabbed the other, sealing his nose and mouth as he used Ruse magic to fill his lungs with water and drown him.^[11] Rushing back to the bar, they learned of a simultaneous assassination attempt on Picker. Picker organised the retired Bridgeburners to investigate the source of the Guild contract.^[12]

Their meeting was interrupted by Coll begging for Mallet to come to the Phoenix Inn to save the dying Murillio's life. Mallet agreed to follow Coll, bringing Bluepearl to assuage Picker's qualms over the danger.^[13] Bluepearl later worked with Picker and Coll to sniff source of the Guild contract.^[14] They did not yet know the attacks had been arranged by Humble Measure who wished to see all the Bridgeburners dead.^[15]

Bluepearl had a reputation for exploring the darker crooks and crannies of the old temple.^[16] In one instance he was approached in the bar's cellar by a benign, but horribly mutilated, ghost while fetching a bottle of Quorl Milk out of storage. The ghost told him the Bridgeburners were squatters in the temple and someone wanted them out. It advised him to break open one of the half-dozen casks left by the monks in the cellar to learn more. The annoyed mage threatened to sic a necromancer on the ghost as it moaned that the living never heeded the dead.^[17]

Later, the mage returned to the cellar to begin the hazardous duty of taste-testing the mysterious contents of the monks' ancient casks. Another ghost's head and shoulders rose up from the floor to ask him if he was Brother Cuven. A scowling Bluepearl scolded the ghost, then carried a cask upstairs.^[18] He arrived in the kitchen just as the Assassins' Guild launched a major attack on the bar itself. Nine assassins entered the bar's front entrance, a dozen tried to enter the back kitchen, and eleven more infiltrated the bar's upper level through a window. Two attacked Bluepearl in the kitchen, pinning his hand to the cask with a thrown dagger before rushing him. The mage dispatched one attacker by spitting a pearlescent globule that transformed into a writhing ball of serpents. The other killed Bluepearl by driving a sword through his nose and into his brain.^[19]

When it was all over, an anguished Antsy railed over his friend's body for having been so foolish as to have died. Picker had to pull him away before he could kick the corpse.^[3] Bluepearl and Mallet were buried in the cellar of K'rul's Bar.^[20]

History

Bluepearl had a history of dodging dangerous sorceries even before he joined the Bridgeburners. In one instance he had avoided the attack of witch and her daughter that would have "made a man's balls swell up as big as melons."^[21]

Quotes

Notes and references

Bridgeburners
Officers	Ganoes Paran • Ash
7th Squad	Antsy • Blend • Detoran • Picker • Spindle
9th Squad	Whiskeyjack • Fiddler • Hedge • Kalam • Mallet • Quick Ben • Sorry • Trotts
Others	Mulch (11th squad) • Bucklund (12th squad) • Aimless • Bluepearl • Cage • Corinn • Dasalle • Liss • Monkrat • Runter • Shank • Toes • Tormin • Story