[OPEN]

[nonvenomous]

WHO: Richard Dickerson, Ellis, YOU?
WHAT: Dirty jobs + some closed starters + catch all.
WHEN: Cloudreach
WHERE: Docks/Lowtown/Gallows/Wildcard
NOTES: Additional starters pending. Action spam and prose are both fine.

Blending in if at the Viscount’s Head Tavern

Alternatively:

Scouting with or bothering him while he’s at Any Other Tavern

Richard has brought his journal with him, as if he expected to be here alone. The fact that he isn’t here alone has not deterred him from opening it and getting to work -- short, sharp strokes of ink on the paper at the point of his quill.

The tavern is as noisy as it smells like it should be, crowded, sticky tables and the stink of salt in the air.

“What would you like to talk about?” he asks, without glancing up from his work.

This doesn’t have to be awkward. If nothing else, the rate at which they’re drinking to keep pace with the local color should see to that.


Wildcard

Throw us somewhere or HMU and we can brainstorm.

Comments

[heorte]

The urge to step back sparks. Ellis is alive because of that instinct, that warns caution in the face of the unknown. The black pulse of poison beneath the skin of the man on the ground is unfamiliar, but after a half-second of assessment Ellis steps forward, one hand out to stop Richard before his foot comes down again.

"Let them run."

In a way, all Ellis had done was provide a moment of distraction. That's all it had taken to let Richard gain the upper hand. That's admirable, no matter the unidentified means he'd used to do it.

But more importantly, Richard's pack and it's contents are still strewn across the pavement. The man beneath Richard's boot has a bloody smear across his face. Ellis points downwards at him with his mace.

"Take your friend and go."

Ellis will have a little regret about that later; he'd come down so hard that it'll be the whole of some healer's night to put back together the shattered mess he'd made of that man's shoulder.

[nonvenomous]

The bloom of adrenaline impulse that drove Dick’s boot down in the first place flashes to Ellis, and quenches on contact.

He’s done.

Bloodied and greasy with fear sweat, Dickerson nods as he reaches back to steady himself against the same wall. Paired fingers pried in deep under the collar of his armor find the papers he stowed there earlier, now damp. He’s still breathing hard, blood roaring in his ears.

Between them, at the end of Ellis’ mace, the last conscious combatant hobbles painfully to his knees, and then to his feet. Blood trickles from his nose first, then his eyes, then his ears.

He claws over into his companion to shake him awake, and together they stumble into the first steps of a simpering retreat.

A dropped pen skitters to the walk in their wake.

[heorte]

For a few moments, there's silence but for the sound of Richard panting, the unsteady footfalls of their retreating assailants. Ellis watches them go as he replaces his mace, then crosses slowly towards Richard.

"How bad?" comes the first question, before he amends, "Will you let me have a look?"

The question about the papers, about what else had happened, can wait a moment.

What language was that lurks in the back of his mind, stalling the bigger questions about what exactly Richard had wrought with what had likely been magic.

[nonvenomous]

“Nothing grievous.” Salt gravels at his gratitude, and prickles in the effort he makes to square upright. It’s very early into this exchange for resentment to taint his relief.

“Thanks to you.”

Up front and at a glance, Richard has taken a standard beating: his lip is split, and there are bloody cuts and scrapes where the prow of his brow, nose and cheek met the wall. Most of the blood is from a knock he took upside the back of his head -- the glistening mat of it egged up and easy to see.

He tolerates inspection visual or physical with the reserve of the freshly embarrassed, ale still sharp on his breath when he finally musters a more genuine:

“Thank you.”

[heorte]

The gratitude is unnecessary, but Ellis doesn't say as much. Between them are two brief points of contact: Ellis's hand on Richard's arm, the brief graze of fingers at the fringe of Richard's hair.

"We'll get you sorted," he says instead, quieter. "Head wounds almost always look worse than they are."

And if they're bad, it becomes obvious very quickly.

"Have you lost anything?"

Or a better question: has anything from his sack broken?

Maybe there's no point in being polite about the whole thing, but Ellis has less inclination to pry. There are secrets he has always wanted to keep to himself, and it seems unfair to demand answers when he doesn't care to offer any in return. He draws back a step, giving Richard breathing room, though his mace still swings from one hand in case a second cluster of robbers decides to try their luck.

[nonvenomous]

It turns out that earnest gratitude at this range is at least as uncomfortable as being robbed.

Fleeting as contact is, Richard prickles into a shiver, tension buckled into an awkward twist of his arm just as he’s released. It’s a little rude -- but more in the vein of a cat wriggling away from a gloved hand than a crocodile snap. Blood is already cooling tacky in his hair and under his collar; he scrubs a sleeve at the pull of it under his chin, and looks down to the scatter of his belongings through the wet and the muck.

His inkwell has shattered, obviously.

“Some coin.”

There are books, a pair of journals, both damp -- he stoops to collect those first. There’s a ruler, a pouch, various academic accoutrement and a wet cloth he turns and crouches to draw up out of a puddle.

He sniffs it before using it to wipe his face, and around the scruff of his neck.

“Nothing important.”

There, with him dropping it (plop) back into the street, it’s easy to see that there is a dagger buried in his back. The grip is stuck in like the butt of a pushpin, pinning his cloak up into boiled leather at an oblique angle. Blood pulses out around the blade when he pushes back up to stand.

[heorte]

There's a split second before the dagger registers. Momentarily satisfied with his assessment of Richard's injuries, Ellis had turned his gaze downward at the sodden collection of items ripped free of Richard's bag. As his eyes raise, alarm passes through him, urgency spiking.

"Stop moving," he says, though they're going to have to start moving right away if they're doing to do anything about the injury. Ellis would have assumed the armor had stopped the blade if it weren't for the blood, spreading thickly outward. Richard's lack of reaction isn't reassuring. Shock does that to a man. Ellis knows this.

"Your back—" Ellis starts, then gives up, pulling off his own cloak. "I won't remove it, but I can staunch the bleeding. We'll have to go directly to the infirmary."

Which Ellis will shuttle him to, if need be. He's already prepared to sacrifice the cloak, reaching to turn Richard accordingly to get at the injury.

[nonvenomous]

Stop moving. Richard stops moving, books and supplies stacked semi-neatly in his hands. His gloves are dark with the sop he’s been pawing around in, his pause expectant.

Putting together context clues in this state is a big ask.

It takes him a moment of reading Ellis up and down for him to crane a look under his elbow, and then back over his shoulder, mild but direct in his disobedience. He angles himself away from that first reach as he replays what he remembers of the fight for himself -- scuffling feet, the pop of finger bones between his teeth and the dull pang in his back.

“Mm,” he says. That does make sense.

“The ferry has gone.” Logistically speaking. Also: “I would prefer not to have this included in official reporting.”

[heorte]

"It won't go beyond the two of us."

A beat, then—

"And whoever is in the infirmary this evening."

An easy promise to make. He's sacrificed a long strip of his cloak to the flow of blood, binding it in place with efficient, practiced movements. This isn't a battlefield, and Dick isn't a Warden, but Ellis can still do enough to keep a wound in check until someone more knowledgeable is available to take a look.

"Let me carry the rest?"

It seems the thing to do, really. Considering the circumstances.

[nonvenomous]

Richard stands and is wrapped like a terrier unhappy about being helped into a sweater, civil disobedience more of a statement than a real barrier for capable hands. He is fully aware of how physically outmatched he is, for the second time this evening.

Ellis had stepped over his bag. Now Dick nods to it in the dark, everything he’s collected so far offered out to place inside.

“If we get a room here, I can take care of it.”

He sounds very confident.

[heorte]

Ellis, on the other hand, is absolutely not confident.

"If it's punctured something inside, it'll need more than bandaging."

There's nothing in his tone that suggests he plans on humoring this request to get a room in Lowtown and watch Richard bleed to death. He does acquiesce to the nod, momentarily yielding his grip on Richard to stoop to sweep the assortment of items into the bag as briskly as possible. He does make some effort not to look closely at what he's handling, as if that'll make Richard feel less aggrieved about this entire affair.

[nonvenomous]

Wet papers, wet books, a ruler -- there’s nothing embarrassing for Ellis to avert his gaze from, at a glance. Richard assists with dumping what he’s picked up himself into his satchel, the leather already heavy with the sludge it’s soaked up from the street.

“I told you before that I’m a healer.”

His eyes stand out bright against the muck and blood, brighter now for the pushback Ellis is putting up -- remnant adrenaline buzzing hot through a crack in the embarrassment and contrition that has him so haggard. As warnings go, the tension in his tone is very polite. It is also tough to translate, beyond the universal language of certain looks and postures telegraphing a man’s intent to get stubborn about this.

He stifles another shiver behind grit teeth.

[heorte]

"You've been stabbed in the back."

There's an element of genuine confusion in that frustrated retort.

"I am a fair hand with bandages and I heed instruction well, but even the best healers need help with something out of their eyeline."

[nonvenomous]

There’s a certain centering of tension in the core that bunches up to ready for fight or flight. Poked and soaked, Richard’s composure is further shot through with cracks under the pressure of this debate, glassy brittle. It’s briefly clear in the tilt of his crusty jaw that he is considering trying to run away like a jackass.

But he hasn’t made the move. Yet.

“This is Kirkwall.”

Right?

He looks to Ellis for confirmation, only for it to immediately occur to him that he can peel up the edge of one of his gloves and grimace down at the splinter of green light beneath, like he’s checking the time.