CLOSED | the perfect stormrider.

[poleaxed]

WHO: Erik Stephens, Gabranth, Diana, Benedict, Edgard, Tiffany, Dick & Jone.
WHAT: The Gang Fights A Dragon.
WHEN: Cloudreach.
WHERE: The Thenuviet estate on the Exalted Planes.
NOTES: if something looks wonky or is misspelled, please know I’m typing this on mobile & have mercy.

GETTING THERE isn’t a short journey, and they’re hardly traveling in comfort. Most of the horses are carrying equipment, armor, weaponry, and anything else those volunteered for this expedition thought to include. And there’s camping equiptment. Anyone who said the travel overland involved staying at inns was lying. Inns are notoriously stuffed with murderers, anyway.

Every night, there’s a campfire and food. Sometimes it’s fresh caught, but if it is, Jone certainly didn’t catch it. Just as likely that it’s rations, salt pork and jerky and whatever dried fruits and nuts Riftwatch can spare.

There’s a STOP AT A BATHHOUSE in the town near the Thenuviet estate, however. It’s stupid, they’re just going to dirty themselves up later, but presentation is important to these people.

Surely all of you brought fancy dress and masks, because IT’S TIME TO SCHMOOZE. There’s a small party of Orlesians dressed to their finest, having a cozy little soirée on the edge of a cliff. Literally on the edge. Don’t indulge too much in the fine wines and cheeses, because there’s a dragon waiting, but for now? It’s never a bad idea to look good in front of rich people of influence. At least, not these days.

Eventually, it’s time to move forward, which means PREPARING FOR BATTLE. Climbing down the cliff is easy stuff, if you’re good with rope or have basic upper body strength. But now is probably the time to set up any traps, get in good positions... because it’s not long before the party on the cliff above begins to cheer.

...Because a few dead swine are unceremoniously kicked off the cliff to fall into the ravine now filled with you and yours.

The cheers from the cliff face only increase as loud thrashing, howling sounds start and become increasingly closer. How long have they been feeding the dragon like this?

But then it’s DRAGON KILLING TIME. You probably know how that goes. Stormriders are huge, dark scaled, and shoot thunder instead of fire. This one is angry you’ve interrupted lunch time.

AFTERWARD, it’s time to heal, take a breath, poke around the dragon bits for fancy heirlooms, and climb back up that cliff.

Comments

[altusimperius]

Eventually, Benedict gives up trying to struggle-- he's not about to use magic in front of a bunch of Orlesian nobles, he was raised better than that-- but the less he externalizes his discontent, the more it simmers in him. By the time they've reached their destination, his face is burning with anger and embarrassment, his eyes dark and glinting as he settles back on his feet and straightens his clothing.

"What are you on about?" he hisses, "you can't do that!"

[archademode]

As if wholly unaffected by the sight of that scorching rage, Benedict's embittered stare is only met by the eyeless hollows of Gabranth's emotionless helm. If it bothers him, if he is wounded to be snapped at so, there's no glimpse to be found in his own steady posture: weight shifted loosely to the heel of his right foot, wrist resting across the edge of his longsword's pommel.

"It is already done."

In other words: yes, he can.

"You are a child no longer, Lord Artemaeus. When a man is honor-bound to an obligation, he sees it through without treating it as if it were a game."

[altusimperius]

"And who says I was!" Benedict snaps back, right into the stupid, empty eyeholes of that helmet, "and it's true, I'm not a child, which means you have no right to treat me like one! Or to speak to me like that!"

Furiously, he looks back over his shoulder at the soiree, then returns his hard gaze to Gabranth.

"It's none of your concern what I do, and I've got it under control, thanks."
The resentment is real; he has been doing his best, and making a good impression was part of his task-- Jone had said so herself!-- so why not make a point of it?
With a scowling shake of his head, Benedict turns as though to stalk away again, deciding the conversation is over.

[archademode]

"I say you were," That Benedict thinks to leave is what prompts yet another momentary outreach from Gabranth, catching him easily by his wrist and drawing him that much nearer for it. "and you would be right to listen."

He does not relish this. Does not imagine either Jone or the others would approve if they were within earshot to hear it, but the fact remains that they aren't here at present, and so what he says, he says with all owed conviction.

"Do you remember what you've come here for?"

[altusimperius]

"And what do you know? You don't even know me!"

Being brought so near so roughly has quickened Benedict's heartbeat, outrage mingling with something else entirely that blurs his thoughts, makes him want to push and push and...

...and perhaps to be brought back, each time, but he can't focus on that now.

"I remember that Jone asked me to come along and watch," he snaps, "and I remember that you decided you have authority over me, which I let you believe, because it got you off my arse for the moment!"

He tries to tug his arm away, and when that fails, he bangs his opposite fist against Gabranth's chest plate a few times, still glaring up into where he knows his eyes are.

"You're just a blowhard bucket-wearing idiot who fell out of the sky and thinks he's important."

[archademode]

"To slay a dragon."

A dragon, Benedict.

And perhaps it's the statements themselves, or the way Benedict refuses to be still and listen— or perhaps Gabranth's patience was only ever a thin veneer poorly cast over an embittered heart, but as that fist beats itself against the hollowed metal of his breastplate, his voice takes on a near growl in the gaps between words. He does not let go.

"These nobles think it amusing, entertainment to be bought in blood and paid with coin."

There are enough experiened fighters present that Gabranth has faith they'll endure without misery, but nothing is a guarantee. Nothing. Somewhere lurking in the matter at hand is a sliver of a chance that this could be a final moment for any number of them should their plans go awry, and he will not see it cast aside in favor of foolish jokes or sweetened wine from nobility as thick as spun thread.

"Do you feel the same, knowing where you will soon stand?"

[altusimperius]

If Benedict were well and truly intent on getting himself free, he has the usual tricks at his disposal; it's crossed his mind to hex the bastard and take off, but apart from the knowledge that attacking an ally with magic will certainly make its way back to Riftwatch-- and Byerly-- there's something deeply intriguing about the way Gabranth grips his wrist.

He tries to pull it free, of course, using the chest plate as leverage, his face sullen and still genuinely furious.
"People--," he grunts with each attempt, "kill dragons-- all the time--! This is a diplomatic venture! You big-- stupid--"

[archademode]

Enough.

For all that he tires of it, Gabranth moves in a single, decisive instant to shove Benedict backwards against the lean trunk of the nearest tree: careful not to hurt him in the process, only end the futility of that wearisome struggle. The vitriol and spite and frothing enmity that threatens to overtake the best of Gabranth's efforts to maintain composure.

He was not built for this. To be so patient. To still be alive.

"How many have you killed, then?" Breath catching in his throat as he asks, the span of his shoulders broad enough to cast Benedict in shade. "Do not speak as if it is some trifling matter, or you will be made more the fool for it when the time comes."

"What I do, I do for you, Benedict Artemaeus. If you wish me gone, say it, and you shall endure neither my concern nor my patience."

[altusimperius]

With a little sound of dismay as he's conveyed so easily from one point to another, Benedict is briefly cowed, and has to take a moment to catch his breath once pressed against the tree.
The look he gives Gabranth now is one of sheer, purposeless impudence; on some level, perhaps closer to the surface than it appears, he knows the man is right. For this reason, he doesn't answer: doesn't disagree, doesn't tell him off or wish him gone.

It's a terrible impulse that drives him to be just as petty as possible, and that's why, for the last pathetic throe of his dying argument, he simply jabs his finger through the eyehole of Gabranth's helmet.
Take that.

[archademode]

That he recoils goes without saying.

A finger just went right in against his eye, so yes— Benedict is thoroughly, entirely dropped (barring one last residual shove backwards) in favor of reaching up to set a gloved hand beneath his helm, hunching for the effort of it, unwilling to risk someone seeing his face while he grips at his own temple like a struck hound.

[altusimperius]

"I'm sorry!" Benedict gasps the instant the thing is done, realizing in that split-second that it was a step too far-- and then he's shoved hard against the tree, the force of it causing him to sink down to a seated position with a little wheeze.

He remains there, horrorstruck and pinned to the spot, watching Gabranth and slowly comprehending how badly he just fucked up.

"Sorry," he says again, so quietly that it's almost to himself.

[archademode]

His back is set to Benedict by the time those apologies reach his ears, helmet tugged fully off and trusting (however foolishly) that should someone approach despite his every attempt not to make so much as a single grunt of dismay, Benedict would provide sufficient enough warning.

Like a residual scratch he can still feel it when he tries to force his eye open once more, lip curled into an irritated scowl.

"Gather yourself up." He doesn't need to look— or see, for that matter— to know that Benedict is likely curled up in some varying state of dismay. The command is hardly gentle, but—

Well, it isn't a snarl for Benedict to get away from him, either.

"Make for the cliff, and meet Jone there. Now."

[altusimperius]

Well, he's sober now.

All Gabranth will hear of Benedict's response is that it's quick and results in his footsteps retreating at a healthy jog. Don't have to tell him twice.