usir | Event #1: The Big One

Entry tags:

The Awakening

🜙 Awakening the Heart Warnings: Injury, Blood, Death

	You are awakened from death by a cloaked figure. The sky is thickly choked by dark storm clouds, but it's growing darker. Sunset is approaching and you know you are far from any of the kingdom cities. It is only once you find your feet that you notice your new tunic adorned with the colors of one of the three kingdoms. It might not be something you remember wearing, but you're about to be thankful for the extra fabric as the first drops of rain begin to fall, hitting you hard and heavy. You won't survive a night out on the marsh flats during a storm. The weather out here is violently unpredictable and it's freezing cold to boot. Your breath escapes in a cloud in front of your face and a shiver runs through you as your feet sink further in the muck of the marsh. You need to find somewhere to go while you sort out what has happened to you. Atrómitos is the closest city to where you are now. You know these marshlands are part of their kingdom. Whatever side you might have been on for the war a simple analysis of the circumstances and surroundings you find yourself in make one thing clear. If you want to survive the night, Atrómitos is your only hope. The chill in the air makes it very clear this is winter and the other kingdoms are much too far to make in so little time. You will have to sludge your way across the muddy, icy marshlands and avoid getting trapped in the thick, deadly mud pits to get there but survival instincts instill a sense of urgency in your movements. You can pillage rusty weapons from the partly to mostly mud-buried skeletons of fallen soldiers on your way, but you had better keep a brisk pace if you want to survive the night. Take care not to grab a living body if you are grave-robbing.
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🜙 X Marks the Spot

	Night falls as you approach the outskirts of what used to be Atrómitos. In the poor light of dusk you can make out just enough to know that something is off about the silhouette of the great city, but you shrug it off to the exhaustion crashing down on you. Your limbs are heavy, your clothing drenched and thick with mud that is hardening in the biting cold. You are finding it hard to keep your eyes open and your limbs moving. Just across a bridge over the river is a large inn. The building is enticing, alive with the sounds of music and life. Light is twinkling from lanterns and candles in its windows, reminding you of warmth. You give the vanishing city silhouette in the distance one more look before it fades from view, swallowed by the approaching darkness. You will never make it to the city before the heavy black of a densely-clouded night cloaks your vision and strands you to stumble blindly across the uneven land and broken paths. It's too risky. You turn for the inn, knowing you have no coin to pay your way, and enter. The portly halfling woman at the bar catches sight of your muddy tunic and drenched form and heaves a heavy sigh, setting aside the flagons she had been cleaning to cross the inn and meet you at the door. "Another one, eh? I don't suppose you have even a handful of silver either?" She clucks disapprovingly, but there is warmth in her expression as she reaches a hand up, offering you a clean, dry towel. It is small, barely enough to dry your face, but it is a gesture of kindness. "Strange times, this. The lot of you are going to run us dry at this rate. Go on then, get yourself over to the fire. Alphie will bring you a flagon of mead and a bite to eat." She points a finger accusingly, stopping any efforts to speak. "And don't you be causing any trouble now. We have rooms enough to spare but you'll be sharing. Beggars can't be choosers. I don't want to hear a word of complaint or excuses. Shoo. Off with you." She doesn't wait for a reply, gesturing toward the large fireplace where a few strangers in similar dress and state to your own are talking over large flagons and bowls of something warm and savory-scented. A teen halfling brings you a bowl and flagon of your own once you find a seat, the smell of a hot and hearty mushroom stew greeting your senses. He also hands you a key fished from his pockets once you've taken your food and drink. "Mum says she expects you to help with chores in the mornin'. Don't be fightin' or she'll sick Boris on you." With that he leaves, heading back toward a massive beast of a saint bernard that sits by the bar. It maintains eye contact for a period before snorting and walking off after the boy. The heavy brass key in your hand goes to a room on the upper floors of the inn, a tag with the room number attached to the ring of it. Chances are you won't be alone when you turn in for the night, but there will be clean linens, a towel, and a fresh tunic and pair of pants in something near your size atop them. It isn't perfect, but it's something. The skies are clear in the morning and the ground is covered in a thin layer of fresh snow. True to the boy's word, Gilly, the woman from the night before, gives you a task in the morning. There are a number of chores, from tending to the sheep or pigs, shifting hay in the barn, cooking breakfast, dishes, doing laundry, or cleaning up the inn. Whatever the task, when you finish it she gives you a bowl of something warm to eat and she thanks you for your help around the inn. You are given the offer to stay so long as you keep doing chores to pay your way.
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🜙 Awakening the Soul

	You leave the inn, but before you can make much progress toward the city a strange sensation overtakes you. It feels like the pull of a magical compass, persistent and steady. The vial you picked up from the battlefield grows cold. It feels like ice against your skin. As the warmth fades from it, it also fades from you. Nothing warms you, not fire, furs, or even the false warmth of alcohol. With the cold comes pain as old injuries begin to appear on your skin, slowly growing worse over time. Succumbing to the pull you stumble back to the battlefield you came from, back across the frozen marshlands. The spot you rose from is untouched by the ice of frozen rain, the grass there still a vibrant green. Something strange is happening. With your animas now close to you and a device in your hand or pocket, you realize the sky has turned menacing once more. The dark clouds of the previous day have choked out the blue skies again and thunder rumbles, approaching at a fast pace. The storm crashes above you. Lightning cracks across the sky and thunder follows it. The weather has warmed enough that rain is falling once more and the hair on the back of your arm stands on end from the electricity in the air. You should get going.
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🜙 A City Under Siege. Warnings: Warfare, Death

	As you return to the city that used to be Atrómitos you quickly realize something has changed. Fires burn around the outskirts of the city. A skirmish has broken out and bulky knights in golden tunics are clashing with a band of fur and leather-clad red orcs, their faces painted with black and white colors of war. The sound of battle is familiar, and the orcs are pushing the city's defense back. There are a number of options before you. You could take advantage of the chaos and join the attack or loot the market. You could assist the defenders in fighting off the orc pillagers. You could slip by into the city and help the people trying to get away from or stop the fires. Or you could just find a local tavern, get a drink, and wait out the battle while you try to make sense of the city's vastly different appearance. Eventually, the defenders manage to beat back the attack and the fires are all extinguished. A crew of volunteers helps to move the bodies out of the city to waiting pyres. Anyone who manages to insert themselves into the crew could easily pilfer some weapons, items, or coin from the bodies. Post-attack the city returns to normal surprisingly quick, these attacks are common for the wall-less city. As night approaches, fires are lit on the outskirts and the city defenders start their nightly patrol. The temperature drops and the rain and thunder turns to snow. Winter is finally here.
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🜙 Divided We Fall.

	In the aftermath of the orc attack the smoke clears and rumors spread faster than fire through the city's streets and taverns. The general consensus is the orcs were after something or someone, but what? That depends on the rumors you hear, and which ones you choose to believe. The city is alive with whispers and theories while attempts to strengthen defenses and repair the damages are underway. Several things become clear in the aftermath: The Skywhale, the airship meant to travel between the City of the Free Peoples and Didymos has been badly damaged, sabotaged and grounded in the orc attack. People in the know about these sorts of things are saying it looks like it will take at least a week or two to be repaired. Winter's first harsh breath has stopped Krimnos' airships as well. The sudden and severe temperature drop in the mountains and the high risk of avalanches has grounded their ships temporarily. As a result, the City of the Free Peoples has effectively been cut off from the other cities. No one seems certain for how long, only that assistance will not be coming soon. And perhaps of more concern than any of this: the orcs are still out there, not far from the city, and they seem to be preparing for a second assault.
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🜙 A Mysterious Message.

	Some time during the chaos a message arrived to your courier. After finding someone who knows what the device is or some tinkering and exploration of your own you discover how to view the thought message it holds and what you find only adds to your confusion. Your message differs depending on your allegiance: Yearning: Do not forget why you are here. It is within your grasp now. You need only to claim what is yours. Hold strong and show no fear. -Epithymetikon Devotion: Burn bright in the dawn where your suns set. Your sacrifices will not be forgotten. Your efforts will not be in vain. Your soul will follow where your heart leads it. -Thymoeides Reason: There is an answer for every question. The truth will not find you. You must seek it for yourself. Do not lose sight of what you seek. -Logistykon
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🜙 It bites, it burns, it yearns and yearns. Warnings: Warfare, Death, Suicidal Orcs

	Snow continues to fall thick and heavy, coating the land in layer after layer of dense, wet, white until a foot of snow coats the plains and lowlands. It seems winter has arrived eagerly on time this year. Small raiding parties of orcs continue attacking the city periodically from different directions. The raiding parties never contain more than a dozen orcs and the attacks rarely last more than an hour. Fires are set, lives are lost, and the orcs vanish once more, their tactics and chosen locations unpredictable. A bounty is issued against the orc tribe, city-wide and open to all. Gold and silver are offered for any information gathered on the orcs and a much larger purse for any who bring back one of the orcs responsible, alive. No simple task as these orcs would sooner die by their own blades than be taken captive. The city is on lockdown, the airships are not coming or going, and city defenses are on high alert. The city's guards are recruiting anyone who is willing and able to help put out fires, fight the orcs, repair damage, offer their weaponry, their magical aid, or their healing talents to the effort. It is made known across the city that all who can help will be compensated in coin, and possibly other rewards, by Captain Lykos himself.

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⤛ Sources: 1 2 3 4 & 5 6 7

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Victor is looking in the same direction, his expression grim. This is too much the immediate life he remembers, and yet nothing like it. Be ready to use his magic and his average skill in fighting for the sake of... well, more in this moment than the usual. Save the lives of strangers, minimize damage.

Get information.

He doesn't know if he'll be the right kind of strong for that. Fighting has always sat poorly for him, but he's endured, been the hero he needed to be up until the moment he died.

His grim expression, for a moment, turns almost wry. ]

As always. Lead away, my friend.

[ Even though friend has nothing to do with it. The dramatics of Alucard's positioning is no more than what Victor would do in different circumstances, but he stands firmly on the ground, his own animas at his side and pointedly staring at the other wolf animas. ]

You do make a striking sight for orc eyes.

[ And a grim smile to replace the wry one, Victor holding his borrowed bow at ready, the sense of magic already in his veins. ]

[The last compliment gets a soft laugh. It's kind and meant honestly, a nice thing before this becomes much nastier work. The ground begins to rumble: a herald of an orc's approach if there ever was one. Alucard stays where he is, waits, tenses, and then the orc bursts in from one of the larger streets.

Simple plans are the best. Using the animas(animaii? animases?) to help herd the orc from the rear is a part of this one, and so Ellis is off on in a flash of white. The creature doesn't notice at all, it's just smashing away.

So Alucard leaps off the well and into the air, sword aimed for the orc's shoulder. A basic blow, nothing complex. A distraction, meant to let Victor find an inital mark.]

[ A gesture from Victor sends Makka slinking off at her own run, her focus as total as Victor's while they move. Even now, after a death and being back in this world that was so like and utterly unlike the one he remembers, there's a grace to how he moves, a remembered poetry of motion.

Even when drawing back on his bow, bringing the magic to bear on it, ice ready to be guided by the arrow's flight. When he lets go, the snap of the bowstring sings out, the arrow finding a home glancing off the exposed section of the orc's hamstring. Not crippling, unfortunately, but it's a guidance for the wild magic Victor had called on, ice crackling through the air after, using the arrow's shaft as a focal point. As the orc jerks back, both from the blow he seeks to parry and the sharp pain of the arrow cutting flesh and passing by, the increased chill doesn't register.

The black ice left painting the ground behind him steals his footing, and he slips, arms pinwheeling, starting to fall. Makka surges forward then, darting in close, nipping at his leg coverings and then taking hold to yank and pull with all the force she can manage, aiding his fall and keeping him off balance as the wind is knocked from his lungs.

It's an opening, if perhaps not quite the one initially expected, but what fight has ever gone according to plan? ]

[It is one hell of an opening. One that seems to have gone about as well as anticipated (improvisation will always happen in such fights).

Alucard was off the orc before Victor's ice found it's mark, having landed off to the side so he could dart one way or the other if the creature's balance decided to go in an unexpected direction. It didn't.

There's no tension or fear in Alucard as the orc gets to it's feet again, the determination to swat away the thing at his ankle far less important than finding where that arrow came from. It lumbers forward.

Good. It's moving in the agreed upon direction.

Ellis, not to be outdone because how absolutely dare Makka get the spotlight, starts to run after the orc too. It is an encouragement of speed over thought, but also a little overeager. Alucard hisses his disapproval at the animas, but that's about as effective as him just standing around. (Fair point, admittedly.)

And so it is on to the next step: darting between the orc's legs and then keeping the attention on the little annoying thing below, so much so that the orc won't realize where he is being lead. Alucard's eyes go gold before speed and instinct take over, and he is weaving around the thing's massive legs and running ahead, ahead, ahead so that he's in the orc's sightline.

The orc's an orc, so of course he's going to stop thinking about arrows and ice and go for the thing in front of him with his weapon. An easy dodge on Alucard's end.]

[ Makka allows Ellis to decide the nature of their harrying, dropping back once Alucard is dodging and weaving and leading the orc on. She won't leave Victor undefended, even if it seems unlikely in the moment that another of the raiding party will divert down this same way; and the closer they are to cutting this orc off, the more secure their position will be.

Which, as it turns out, says nothing about the orc's willingness to to get into position. Chasing after Alucard with enviable determination, the orc cries out with words Victor chooses not to focus on, swinging his pike and smashing into one of the narrowing street's walls. Stone dust and snow shake out and the wall shudders, Victor bringing his hands down to his hips and turning his palms up toward the sky, lifting them up as if he's weighed down by something immensely heavy. Makka is near his heels, watching his back as the ice he summons from the snows and water found on the surfaces nearby moves, resolidifying as a wall at the orc's back.

Victor lets go of the magic as it finishes taking shape, breathing in the sharp, cold air with a gasp. This is draining, he notes, and he would laugh in other circumstances.

Death helped him lose his edge. Who would ever have suspected.

The same wall is what he hauls himself up on top of now, balancing and taking aim with his bow. ]

Back to the wall!

[ He calls out, because one bid for keeping the orc immobile is getting them positioned for Victor to use his magic and freeze them into place. ]

[Ellis just seems to be having fun in all of this, which is in direct contrast to Alucard's opinions on the matter. He is moving at the speed of a man, not a dhampir with all the feral magic in the world. It is unnatural for him to behave this way in a fight, and he fights instinct to keep moving in that way.

When blows from the orc try to find him, he dodges more than he attacks. He can't attack fully, it'll put the orc off course, and this entire plan hinges on a set path. When the pike smashes, dust lands in Alucard's hair, and he keeps moving ever onwards.

Then there is the ice wall, and part one of their plan is completed. (There is such a dreadful nostalgia in him for that ice magic.) The orc cannot turn around. Or if he does, he'll have to fight through a wall of ice that shall always be replenished. There is only forward, and to make sure that happens, Alucard takes a swipe at the orc's feet to egg him on.]

Whenever you're ready for the front!

[Alucard's not very worried about being stuck in the trap with the orc. What he is worried about is dodging the weapon about to come down on his head. His eyes go gold. He moves with his normal speed and his face as grim as the orc lashes out at him for it.]

[ Victor runs the length of the wall, far more sure of his feet than most humans, owing to a heritage he doesn't bother talking about all that often. He keeps his bow drawn, loosing one arrow to nick the orc as they bring their weapon down on Alucard's head--or more accurately, as they try.

It doesn't cause damage, but it does strike off their padded shoulder, and Victor's already past and shouldering his bow to crouch and call on the magic, weaving the movement and music of his version of an artform in a pattern he'd known for over a decade. The ice forms, building upward at an incredible rate, and shoots parallel along the walls. With Alucard the forward facing distraction, and Ellis having fun, when the ice juts away from the wall, perpendicular, it moves to Victor's smaller gesticulations. Bars of ice forming between the orc's legs, behind their back, in front of them. Several break as the orc moves, but as those break, the rest link together, new bars forming. Victor clenches one fist and thrusts his other hand out, curling his fingers until his hand looks clawed, and pulls violently across his body. The ice wall behind the orc creaks and groans and slides forward, ultimately coming to a rest at the orc's back. Victor is so focused on what he's doing, and the careful way he is ensuring he isn't damaging the orc beyond what the orc is doing to themselves, but it takes all his focus.

This didn't used to feel like this, but there's a wildness to the magic, almost too much, trying to respond too quickly. Victor's having to hold back to maintain the finesse he used to have so easily, but he'd be thankful for that, if he had the thought to spare.

It makes him have to focus on his magic, and focus on keeping it something he can stand. He's not using it to help kill, not if he can help it. Not again. ]

[There is a point where Alucard is essentially useless and the rest of this is on Victor. That had been clear in their planning from the get go - Alucard was a damn fine fighter and the better distraction. Victor's magic was the perfect thing for restraint and bringing down the temperature of the room in the most literal way. It was perhaps unfair to demand he take the bulk of the work in the end, but that was how things shook out.

The orc being trapped means that Alucard finds his own way up onto the rooftops (Ellis is happy to wait on the ground, thank you very much). He needs to be out of the way for this to be finished, and being at a higher vantage point means that if all truly goes to shit, then he can leap into the fight again with a bit more surprise.

His eyes ping onto where Victor stands, and Alucard makes sure that he is on the oposite side but otherwise parallel. There's only one thing left to do, and that is check in.]

How long do you think you can hold him in?

[An orc, captured, requires the attention of the actual people in charge of the city, after all.]

[ Victor's response comes after an extended moment of his concentration; brow furrowed, he lifts one hand and waves it at Alucard, fingers curled into his palm and flicking outward. ]

He's struggling, but without interference, fifteen minutes, maybe twice that. It'd be easier holding two walls, but the active regeneration from his attacking would cut the time back down and make it negligible.

[ Regulating the strength of the magic was a bit like riding an unfamiliar mount. Victor keeps his eyes locked on the orc. Makka, who has managed to find a way up onto the wall, looks across the space to Alucard and wags her tail, held low, once. Then she settles next to Victor, providing him support.

He flashes Alucard a grimmer smile, ignoring the insults being thrown at him from the orc. It's not like he can't understand them, but he certainly is excellent at tuning out the angry outpouring of words. Makka's ears twitch, but she seems about as unconcerned, if more tense than Victor appears to be. ]

[Alucard nods once to show he's understood all the complications. They're many, and they all come from the nature of magic itself. He's spent so much less of his own energies for this fight, but right now, right now that's an advantage.]

I shall return in five.

[It's all calm confidence, and then in a moment, all the feral magic he's learned over the decades is tapped into. He is gone in a flash, the superhuman speed not just the mark of what he is but what the world demanded of him. Defense that lay in world of the strange and wild and untamed.

Something something irony to be parsed out at some point. Right now, the only mission here is to ensure that there are enough extra hands to deal with a captured orc, and that's only a run through the city streets away.

What was supposed to take five minutes takes ten instead, a fault not born of Alucard's speed failing but the amount of arguing about yes it is a actually captured orc, I am not pulling your leg, would you--. Exhausting in it's own right.

The return is as swift footed as before. Those behind him can catch up, and all Alucard yells when Victor is in earshot is:]

They're two minutes away, how much longer do you have for this?

[ Victor doesn't look his way, evidence of strain around his eyes as he continues to focus just on the orc trapped below. The orc is still for the moment, but that's not a guarantee of staying that way, and so he calls back without looking: ]

Long enough for that.

[ Says the man sweating trying to keep up with magic use that really shouldn't have this kind of toll on him. He supposes he should be kind to himself. He did just recently get resurrected a hundred years after dying.

The orc surges against the ice bindings as they hear Alucard call out, struggling even harder. It takes everything for Victor to reform and strengthen the ice barring him in place, trembling once as the exhaustion mixed with adrenaline and surged through him again. He grit his teeth and held on to the movement of magic he saw in his mind. Muttered through his grit teeth: ]

Never thought I'd be longing for a minute man.

[ Ha. Ha. ]

[Did...did Victor just?

The sharp laugh that escapes Alucard's throat surprises even him. It's not like the humor's beyond him, just nothing he'd ever think of employing in this particular moment. It does not escape the dhampir's notice that Victor is straining. His eyesight's good and he failed to make good on his promise of five minutes. There will be an apology for that later. For now, Alucard stands in front of the wall of ice, his sword so very much at the ready in case of Victor's magic finally giving out. (It won't, Alucard knows that. He's seen ice magic so many times, he knows that it's durable.)

And there's only a minute wasted. There's a flurry of soldiers behind Alucard now, armed with their own equipment and enough chains to behind the orc for whatever fate awaits him next. Questioning, most likely. Execution thereafter, because this is an attack on a city and there has never been mercy shown for such actions. Someone yells something about dropping the wall, and Alucard doesn't move an inch. He only projects his voice up.]

Only if you can hold him long enough to allow the attachment of other bindings!

[ The laughter is unexpected to Victor as well; frankly, he should have guessed Alucard would hear, but he only responds with a brief quirk of his lips. Humour for every situation, appropriate and otherwise. He can't afford to be distracted, even as another bar of ice shatters and he collects the shards of ice to reinforce the rest, like some bizarre, crystalline body-cage.

He hears the rest arrive, but it's Alucard's call which pulls his attention out of his head and off the orc. He doesn't bother trying to bring down the wall; he parts the middle, allowing access through. He won't be able to gracefully bring it down while keeping the orc immobile enough to not be a threat to themselves or anyone else. Even with that concession, the orc's leg gets free, and Victor gestures with a brief jerk of his hand to re-pin it with his ice.

The soldiers are met with a bizarre landscape, having to duck under the more massive ice beams braced against the wall of stone to wind their chains fully around the orc. Victor holds on to the ice, waiting to see that more than restraint, the orc has something shoved between their teeth, before he feels another tremor in his limbs, and he breathes in, letting go of the magic as he breathes out. The ice disintegrates into thousands upon thousands of beautiful blue and white points of light, snowflakes hat flurry around them all with an odd warmth and permeating sense of relief. They settled as Victor rocked back, sitting down hard on his rear on the wall as the soldiers struggle with the orc. He glances around for Alucard, even while Makka shoves herself precariously into his lap, nuzzling against his chest.

He slings a tired arm around her, feeling lightheaded and sick. Both more psychosomatic than true. Torture and its necessity were things he did not know he believed in, particularly not from fanatics, and the orcs all struck him as fanatics. Fanatics had precious little to offer but their emphatic wish to die for their cause. ]

Well. That was exciting, eh, Makka?

[ She huffs out a sigh and licks at his jaw. He doesn't have the energy to try and avoid her tongue, just frowning as the saliva cools on his skin. Yay. ]

[Extracting and binding the orc isn't a smooth process. It must happen in stages, and there are a few points towards the end that Alucard worries that they'll need to risk security if only to make sure Victor doesn't fall down (and possibly land on the orc.) But somehow everything goes better than expected, and that is that.

The orc is led away, gag only doing so much to still the noises coming from his mouth, and the sprinkle of falling ice reflects in the the air. It is a strange way to conclude the matter. Pictureque and suited for a more mild, calm scene than what has just transpired. In that thought, Alucard smiles thinly for the nostalgia of ice magic again. (He misses the person who he saw wield it best. He'd be so furious to know someone dug her up from the grave.)

Going up higher, onto the wall, that flurry is still there. Catching in Alucard's hair and on his coat, and okay he definitely has a whole ass wolf under his left arm because that's a thing he has to do now. Ellis seems to be enjoying it way too much, especially because Alucard's decided to use his feral magic to hop up, up, up rather than climb like a normal person.

He puts her down first on the wall, then makes his way over to Victor. Sits, because that's better for this moment. Ellis just stands there, prim and alert.]

I've seen few people use magic with that level of control. [Which is all to say amazing work.] Are you going to have enough energy to get back down?

[ It might be comedic, how Victor looks to Alucard, and Makka tips her head back, back, back to do the same. She blinks long and slow, not bothering to move from where she's shoved herself into Victor's lap. He doesn't try shoving her off either, his knees already protesting from the extended position he'd been in while keeping the orc restrained. Right now he's giving them a break.

He breathes out in an amused sigh, looking toward the ground. He rubs at his jaw, scrubbing the saliva off. ]

It's not so far to fall, [ he concludes, therefore accepting his worst case scenario, ] but if it's all the same, I think I'll wait a few moments before trying.

[ He lifts the hand not clasped to Makka, dancing his fingers through the air. He accepts the compliment, really, but it comes juxtaposed with the cost of that control, and the lack of anything to show for it here in the now. Much of the flurry has settled, but what does remain dances around his fingers, swirling in playful eddies. ]

Something of a mixed blessing during the war. [ He lowers his hand again, leaving the snow to swirl once more before falling toward the ground, drifting on purely natural winds. ] You have excellent reflexes, yourself.

[The contrast between the sync of Victor and Makka versus a dhampir and his disaster asshole wolf is...well, Alucard will observe more of it before he makes commentary, but it is a contrast. He'd prefer that kind of sync, because having to yell at a fluffy white murderbeast is getting exhausting, and it hasn't even been a fornight.

But this sitting thing, it's nice. Alucard could keep running for hours still, but the part of him that's indulging in the wonder of just seeing ice magic again has decided against it. Beisdes, there will probably be other nights for dealing with orcs.]

I think we can spare a few moments.

[His gloved hands rest on the wall, palms flat, fingers splayed out. They support none of his weight, but the hands need somewhere to go. Alucard's eyes, however, are on the snow Victor is controlling.]

Anything was a mixed blessing during that nightmare. [That's something he has noticed no one is willing to discuss in this merry band of no-longer-dead. The war itself. Victor's the only person he's interacted with to even breath the word.]

Thank you. Needed it when I was traveling.

[ Patterns might emerge over time, highlighting that the closeness they share is Victor's own needs reflected back at him, the search for something tactile, his need for something to hold. He's very good at holding on to himself, and inventing himself as he needs to be. Makka is a more honest reflection of those expectations, and she's capable of showing the reassurance he needs in how she asks for it in turn. She's even a jesting look at the most stripped down part of himself, what he has denied all his life to survive and what still remains true. Even so, it's not enough yet to say what of his soul she reflects. It's all too new.

And souls change, don't they? Minds certainly do. ]

Thanks.

[ He chuckles, running his fingers through Makka's fur after he leaves the snow to dance alone, unguided by his efforts. The war is ever-present on his mind, his last five years alive mired so deeply in it he can't see what's beyond it. There hadn't been a beyond. Just death, after so much death.

But talking about the fact it happened and talking about the happenings within that time were two different things. ]

I wonder why it is that it feels like we've been woken up just in time for another.

[ It's a playful, silly simile; they'd been resurrected, but ah, he'd rather keep that point vague. Not that everyone has, but being associated with forbidden magics was not something he assumed became favourable a hundred years after he last knew it certainly wasn't.

Makka is still on his lap, quiet in his arms. She's listening to him speak, and he doesn't talk about the things really on his mind directly. No point burdening others with personal things. They had enough in the realities they faced. ]

Seems like there'll be good call again for the same. Travel doesn't sound friendlier here.

[ It sounds markedly worse in what little conversation he's had with the city folk, discussing their frustrations with the damage to the Skywhale, the difficulties to travel the lands instead of the skies. ]

[Thank you for the bare minimum of what's polite and decent. Alucard probably puts too much thought into that, but this sequence of events has brought up a number of memories that ache, and usually that means behaving as more of an ass than he allows himself to be otherwise. Victor doesn't deserve that, and instead Alucard focuses on the rooftops just beyond them. There's a fire blazing somewhere, the wind is carrying on the smoke. It mixes with more homely hearth fires and the stench of well, orc. Which is a very pointed scent indeed, and it hits himself and Ellis at the same time. Both of them scrunch up their noses at it.

What Victor says next is a point long considered on Alucard's mind. They all stand on the edge. (No, they're sitting on an edge, but that sure as hell isn't the point.) Below, an abyss. What lies at the bottom is unknown. What shall snag and tear at them from the walls that surround the abyss equally so. All Alucard can say for sure is that it involves fucking dragons and that he hates it.]

Because you're right, I suspect.

[Alucard's face is set and cold. If there isn't war, if there isn't something horrible, he shall be surprised. Delighted for it even. But all he can think of is dark thoughts because this entire thing has been dark. It has screamed of forbidden magic (he ought to know, he grew up around a father who spent too much time with it.) They were powered by forbidden magic and for that there was only ever strife.]

It sounds normal to my ears. Doubtlessly modern advances have made what was once as such simply sound barbaric.

[ Makka sneezes when the stench of orc and woody smoke hits her, Victor averting his face to avoid getting canine snot on him. He more or less succeeds. Makka attempts to give his chin an apologetic lick, and he tucks her head under his chin to prevent her from managing that particular feat. His arms tighten around her for a moment, and she goes still; then she breathes out as he does, twin sighs, and he looks back to Alucard, visibly curious. ]

Fair enough, but I don't know. Has everything here felt the same to you as it did before? The... [ He trails off with a frown. One hand frees itself from Makka's fur, and Victor gestures, trying to encapsulate a feeling he's had that was more than just the disquieting nature of their existence: feeling that presence before he'd risen from his unmarked grave, the pain and death that had dogged him back to the same place only to find the flowers and Makka uncurling herself from the tight circle she'd been in, courier left near her nose. The magic here feels different, and not in friendly ways, just as the land felt darker.

Then again, it was winter, and while Victor was fond of the winter for reasons involving both its hearth warmth and its white, falling silence, winter did not often lend itself to lightness.

He breathes out in a sigh, affecting a smile; self-aimed deprecation, because why mull over it until he knows? ]

The touch of everything. I don't know. I may be seeing shadows for spectres when they're nothing more than the result of the play between light and dark.

Of course it hasn't felt the same. [There should be a no duh tone, but Alucard's distracted by Makka being pointedly ridiculous. She's charming in her way, whereas Ellis has gone to explore elsewhere. Her posture is stiffer than usual, and it may well be just because the two human shaped things are not keeping an eye out for trouble. So ugh, she has to work.]

Every age has it's own texture. I mean that literally. Before everything happened, I went the world over looking at things from ages past, trying to determine what they were and what they meant for the present day. Everything cast different shadows.

[But that still isn't quite what Victor is describing. Alucard pauses, then settles on a realization.]

Textures change, but the additional shadows? I think that's from the circumstances of going from a century of death to being present now. Too much has happened too quickly, all of it horror. All of it with no time to settle in anyone's mind.

Mm, anthropology? Archaeology?

[ His relationship with either subject being in passing and focused largely on what was relevant to his own pursuits. History provided a rich backdrop to inform and expand upon in the present; history was also a shifting landscape, much like the present. It's one of the things he wonders, what stories are told of a century ago. He hasn't heard hardly enough. It isn't the casual topic of conversation around the hearth at the inn, nor in passing with those he's spoken with since reawakening.

Still, what Alucard says makes sense, while it doesn't quite set the topic to rest for Victor. He hums his acknowledgement, patting Makka's side and encouraging her off his lap. His ass is falling asleep in degrees, and his strength has collected, now that he's been given a chance to breathe without channeling the magic he'd been using. ]

You make good points. [ Makka trots along the wall, glancing back at Victor, who gives her a small shooing motion of encouragement: I'll follow. He plants his hands and pulls his legs up, hooking one heel on the wall, then the other. ] That's one thing no one ever went over at the academy. How to process your death and an incredible passage of time, not even when considering the processes involved for either the naturally twice-born or the unnaturally resurrected.

[ He grunts as he gains his feet, perhaps surprisingly agile for a man who'd been asking to gather his strength not so long before. One benefit to being part elven, he supposes. ]

It was always theories about how much memory would be retained, or what was required to be able to reconstruct a body from nothing. Exactly what was left of us to bring back? A shadow against an even darker magic? Who's to say.

[ That feel of the magic after he'd found himself standing in the rain is what he remembers now; the weight of it, the darker undertones, the way it was so hungry and quick to respond. Dangerous in a way he'd been warned about as a child, but it had never felt like this before.

Alucard is probably right, that it's because of the disorientation of finding himself alive, the disquiet of knowing it came at a cost of magic that someone would be calling in for purposes unknown, and that their own souls weren't self contained. Between the vial that sat against his chest beneath his layered clothing and the fact of Makka's existence, it's all unsettling. He's still not sure that's the full explanation, but insisting on that point would be insensible. He'd mull over it later, possibly with the aid of a good tankard of mead. (Not ale, please. Bring him the stuff with more of a kick and let him float off on honeyed dreams.)

He makes his way along the wall to a convenient jumping off point, following Makka's lead, and finding himself once more standing on solid ground. For now. ]

Just a curator. Everything was well out of the ground and in private hands. [He pauses, realizing that this deserves at least some explanation.] My parents had all manner of things, and over time I went from managing the strange and wondrous in our house to assisting others as well.

[That's good enough clarification without needing to dig into the fact that some of his father's things were absolutely too many books on blood magic, or his mother's Highly Experimental Medical Things (that usually worked.)

Alucard waits for Victor to stand up in full before doing the same himself. Just easier due to space, and soon enough, he's walking behind Victor by just a step-and-a-half. Zero point in whistling to grab Ellis' attention. She's already there, relieved to be free of guard duty.]

They covered necromancy in any extent there?

[The surprise is genuine. It was a natural thing to guess that if magic is forbidden, it's not taught or discussed widely even within the realm of the academic. Such places weren't well suited to Alucard, his temperament was terrible for it. But to hear the perspective, that he could manage.

But as Victor elaborates, it makes sense. Just discussion of theory and wild what-ifs. Just musings. Nothing practical. Probably nothing ever hinting at the practical. (Of course why would anyone need a practical lesson on processing being dead-then-not? It was a thing not done or required in any number. Except now there was.)

His face is sour as they descend the wall, all memories now back to the nonsense of war and the greater stupidity of being dragged from the grave.]

It makes me wonder if any of us were truly incomplete, would we have that self awareness.

[And being incomplete, here, now, in this situation, that is something that must be answered. For if no one is, there is a great problem indeed. Solid ground may be literally under their feet right now, but that was just the thing. The literal.]

[ Collectors of all kinds of things. In a sense, he still sees that as the interest in history and the past, but a curator of knowledge and artifacts is not so far off from what it is academics in those fields might believe of themselves.

He laughs, tired but amused, and lifts his shoulders and his hands, palms turned skyward. In another context it might look like a supplication. In this, it's simple a way of showing a certain kind of openness to the possibilities. ]

Would we? I can't remember all of my life on the best days, and these have been anything but the best. I have a companion I can't explain anymore than I can explain my own existence. When have we ever known ourselves as being complete beyond any shadow of a doubt?

[ Makka flicks an ear his way, sniffing along the cobblestones. He waggles his fingers at her, and she blinks, mouth opening a few degrees to show her relaxed lips and her canines. She shakes herself and settles into walking along with them now that they're on the ground. ]

It might be worth worrying about, but I'll have to see the identifiable evidence to understand what to do about it.

[Victor's expressive nature is a contrast in all ways to Alucard, and there's too many layers of irony involved with it. Ice mage? Far more open and ethusiastic. Swordsman? Like a well frozen over, little warmth or anything like it escaping. It's something that Alucard muses on as he walks besides Victor, the easiness of this discussion contrasting with the face that there are orcs invading the city right now.]

While I take your point, things like gaps in memories are actually what I am referring to in this case. [It is a good point. But so is Alucard's, as biased as he may be on the topic.] The problem, naturally, being that we would not be aware of the issue until it decided to reveal itself to us.

[Ellis, naturally, has decided to stay behind the others, forming a one-wolf rear guard. How effective it may or may not be shall be revealed in due time.]

It is worth considering, at the very least, even if it adds more terrible weight and what-ifs to the situation we find ourselves in.

[But there's little else to do beyond think. He's good at that, overly so.] And decide what to do in the immediate future. I'm certain that that was not the only orc in this city.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Event #1: The Big One

thank you so much for your patience! rl insanity

Hey don't worry about it you're here now

<3

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