[OPEN] FROM RIFTWATCH WITH LOVE: PART ONE

[unshut]

WHO: Everyone and anyone
WHAT: An abomination redecorates the Gallows.
WHEN: Early August
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Part One of FROM RIFTWATCH WITH LOVE. Will include some violence, some general chaos, and some light murderin'.

There is a man in a worn traveling cloak. He is dark haired, with sharp features dominated by a dark horizontal scar near his hairline, and later someone will describe him as having been soft spoken when he asked for directions.

But something in the Gallows' dining hall, with its unreliable population for the midday meal, must catch under his skin; he's found his voice again by the time he steps up onto one of the benches.

"Is this all of you?"

Someone nearby tells him to get his boots off the furniture, so the man climbs higher onto the table and is louder the second time: "Is this really all you are? A few people in a tower on an island?"

Heads are coming up. As his voice rises, he produces an envelope from his pocket.

"Do you think this is funny? Playing at being something, and telling people you can make a difference to them? You were supposed to be helping, but you're all just sitting here! Don't touch me"—to someone encouraging him to get off the fucking table—"You were meant to be helping us. You promised you would, and I told her I believed you!"

Hands are reaching for him. No, really, get off the table. You can explain what's wrong once you're down; you're with friends— The man jerks his arm free, snarling, "Don't touch me! You're nothing!" A stronger hand finds him then and begins pulling him struggling down. With a wrenched cry of, "Livia!" the man slips from the table.

A column of fire pours upward out of him like molten heat from a crack in the earth. It bursts so high that it scorches a circle on the dining hall ceiling, and burns so suddenly hot that it sends those nearest to him recoiling backward as their clothes catch. The fire licks again in random directions, in chaotic fits and starts of light and heat, and the thing that rises up again in the mage's place isn't really a man at all.

The rage abomination will ravage its way through the dining hall and prodigious Gallows kitchens, then out into the courtyard beyond leaving considerable destruction in its wake until finally brought down by Leander. In the charred aftermath, the following can be recovered from among the mage's belongings: a leather corded bracelet with a green bead woven in it (too small for anything but the smallest wrist), a functioning phylactery, and a letter from "Riftwatch" which implies a history of correspondence and familiarly refers to the recipient by name, 'Felix.' An investigation of Riftwatch's files will reveal the log of having received a message from a similar Felix, No Lastname six months earlier. The message itself is nowhere to be found among the Gallows records.

The recovered letter assures Felix that all will be well, and includes instructions to wait in the woods above the crossroads of a small Wildervale village.

'Help will be on its way. Good luck, and safe travels.'

Comments

[muckspout]

Edgard's entire body wilts. He's looking for fun, not heavy labor.

"Steel is heavy. Steel is not easy to hide. What would I want with steel?"

[deceivingly]

"New Edgard."

She gives him a Look, unimpressed.

"You sell the steel."

[muckspout]

Edgard rolls his eyes and gives an exaggerated imitation of her Look. He may be New Edgard, but he's not Idiot Edgard.

"I know you sell the steel. But, I repeat: steel is heavy and not easy to hide."

Edgard is intrigued by this woman, maybe even likes her, but he's not going to be her cart horse.

[deceivingly]

Once he gives her the Look, Doki melts her Look off of her face, and mugs horribly instead. Boo, you whore.

"O-kay," she says, heavily, "so you are a weak baby and you do not want to work hard. There are feather pillows that might be hiding a bushel of apples. Is that better for you?"

[muckspout]

"Much better."

Edgard gives her a wink. If she wants a rise out of him, she's going to have to try harder than that.

"Are the feather pillows comfy? Are they silk? And what kind of apples? Don't say steel."

Edgard points a finger at her, his mouth twitching, hiding a laugh.

[deceivingly]

Having started to open her mouth to reply, Doki clamps it shut into a frown.

"Who keeps steel under a pillow," she says scornfully, "that would be the worst place. The pillows, they are okay. No silk. We are in Riftwatch. They have no silk unless they had it before they came here and they brought it with them."

[muckspout]

Edgard nods, looking away in thought and then snaps his eyes back on the woman.

“So what’s your plan?”

[deceivingly]

Doki scuffs the toe of her boot against the floor, tracing a mark in the dirt and ash that has drifted and collected there. She cocks her head, and draws another line, directly parallel to the first.

"My plan," she says, casually, "is that I am not bothered about pillows. I will go and look through all of the storerooms to see if I can find any apples that I like. Because everyone is very busy, and I am very small."

She shoots him a glance.

"And what is your plan, New Edgard?"

[muckspout]

Edgard folds his arms and raises his eyebrows.

“My plan is your plan if you’ll have me. Except I’m not small and maybe a pillow or two.”

Don’t need to be small when things are burning.

[deceivingly]

That makes her laugh. Her teeth show--peasant teeth, not good--and her eyes crinkle at the corners.

"I have seen men that would make you look small. I have seen women that would make you look small. I am Avvar, and we have folk who come of bears, New Edgard, so I am only a little impressed with you. But you are bigger than me and I like you."

She turns on her heel and starts off down the hall, heading for the doors, away from the big scorched hole in the wall.

"More apples," she calls blithely over her shoulder, "come on, let us look."

[muckspout]

Edgard, a little dazed and a lot impressed by that speech, watches her walk away for a moment before stumbling after her.

“I’ve met bears,” he offers a little out of breath. “Didn’t get along too well with them. You’re alright though.” He gives a crooked grin.

“You haven’t told me your name. Is that anywhere in your plan?”

[deceivingly]

"Yevdokiya an Waslyna O Bearhold," she says cheerfully, and grins up at him again. "Another bear. We will be getting along. So, I will let you call me Doki."

She is, as she had said, small, especially compare to tall New Edgard. Her confidence makes the memory of her larger, which is generally enough, and her quick pace makes her legs seem as if they must be longer than they actually are.

"I fed you and told you my name so you cannot betray me now. This is how it works. You understand?"

[muckspout]

"Doki," He repeats, testing the sound of it. "I won't betray you."

He looks down at her his crooked grin broadening. Edgard knows what loyalty is and it suits him more often than it doesn't, but he also has paid the price for it more than once.

"So long as that arrangement goes both ways." He raises an eyebrow, his tone is teasing, but he means what he says.

[deceivingly]

She raises the eyebrow opposite the one he'd raised at her, as she shoulders open the door out of the main hall.

"You have to give me food first. Then the pact will be sealed. Until then, I can make no promises. But I will try to remember how much I like you until you give me food."

The passageway on the other side of the door is fairly narrow and has a gentle downward slope. There are no windows here, but sconces light the way, one every few feet.

[muckspout]

"I will make that a priority."

Edgard hesitates a moment and takes a breath before entering the passageway. He wouldn't normally enter such a spooky place with someone he just met or even alone for that matter. Yet, he finds himself squeezing into it behind Doki, still smiling.

"Try not to get me stuck in here or-" He searches. "--eaten by something."

[deceivingly]

Doki shoots him a look over her shoulder, like please.

"You're not that big. If you get stuck, it will be your own fault. And there is nothing scary here--" Well, she squints, and has to add, "Nothing scary here anymore. Unless you are afraid of people who talk a lot."

[muckspout]

Edgard laughs at that.

"If you mean you, no. Anyone else? Yes, potentially." As a rule, most of the time.

He continues to follow her down, down, every so often glancing back toward where they entered until its no longer visible.

"How far does this go?"

[deceivingly]

She makes a little face at him this time, ghoulish, all teeth. "You should be a little afraid of me. I am full of potential."

But she is satisfied whether or not he agrees, and turns back to keep leading the way.

"It does not go very far. We will be there soon. Do you not like caves, and things like caves?"

[muckspout]

Edgard flashes a wide smile at her back after she's turned away. He's well aware he should be afraid of her, but isn't at all.

"I'm not against caves in particular." He muses. "I just don't like to get into things I can't get out of, if I can't help it."

[deceivingly]

"You should be smaller."

Ahead of them, the passageway takes a short turn, and here, at last, is a door. It is not locked and Doki opens it easily. On the other side is--well, another corridor, wide enough that you could drive a cart down it, and lined with doors. At either end there are stairways, just as wide as the corridor.

Doki makes an expansive gesture to the doors--left, and then right.

"We choose one. And we see what is behind it."

[muckspout]

“I am perfectly content to be big,”

Edgard grins at Doki and then puts his hands on her shoulders, spinning her to the left.

“I like the look of that door. After you,” He taps her shoulders lightly before removing his hands.

[deceivingly]

Oh.

Thus spun, Doki takes a moment. She looks up at him.

"If you touch me again, Big New Edgard, without asking, I will cut your hands off and stuff them up your arse." She smiles, pleasantly, which either makes the threat funny, or more serious. "This door?"

She goes and opens it, and steps inside.

There are shelves lining the walls, and no window. The light comes with them, spilling in from the corridor. Doki reaches onto one of the shelves and comes up with a jug. She hefts it, thoughtfully.

"Ale," she guesses.

[muckspout]

Edgard throws his hands in the air, laughing.

"Désolé, it will not happen again."

He looks at the jug in Doki's hands and then pulls out a cup from somewhere under his shirt.

"It is probably ale. Want to find out for sure?" He waves the cup teasingly over her head and then has a thought, "Does ale count as food? I haven't forgotten that I need to feed you."

[deceivingly]

"Ale does not count as food," tartly, but she holds the jug out to him with force. Here. "Désolé for you. I still want to know for sure if this is ale. You pour."

Once he's accepted the jug, she turns back to poke at the rest of the shelves, in case there is something else here for them. She's not worried about the state of the cup, not even coming from beneath a shirt like that. There are bigger things in the world than dirty sweaty chest cups.

dying at 'dirty sweaty chest cups'

[muckspout]

Edgard sets the cup down on the floor and removes the cork from the jug. He peers in with one eye and sniffs it a little. He then pours out a brown liquid into the cup.

"It looks like ale. I suppose there's only one way to find out. If its not ale, it was a pleasure meeting you." Edgard raises the glass to Doki, still turned away, and downs the whole cup.