RP:A visit from Linn
Ryder Sanctuary
Desparrow was sitting in his throne-like chair in the center of his hall which was thankfully void of corpses and any signs of decay that may had been left over from the time when the thugs broke in. The hall was still getting cleaned, red staining the tiles and the walls, even the scent of blood still lingering somewhat but it was far more bearable than before. His three ex-cenril guard compatriots sat around him having a snack while three more men with little more than rags to cover them lay on the floor nearby tearing into what looked to be raw meat. They also bear the mark of the cursed, bitten between the shoulder and neck, recently too, not even a day old and yet they had the stamina and hunger of a turned lycanthrope however that would not be far off; the men had suffered the effects of some magic Mihael had and with Des was able to force the curse to take hold and create transformations by simulating the full moon and delivering artificial lunar light directly upon them where it needed to be. Wolves in small piles were resting, having had to run around from Cenril to Larket and back across the period of a single night and being able to hunt only after. All was good for the Alpha it seemed.
Linn wore his usual armor and pack on the next of his occasional trips into Cenril during the day. More and more he couldn’t help but find the nearly comical shininess of his mithril armor rather convenient; it even kept the sun from being such a problem when it came to heat! Enough to make the rest of it manageable anyway. It may even help with being subtle if played off of in the right ways. Really he was just keeping his mind busy, having a hard time slowing down with everything seeming to go to hell around him. And now… bombs. To keep a bad situation from going to worse. SPEAKING OF WORSE. When he entered the house through its magically opening door (Assumed to do so at this point…) the only thing he could think of at the sight of more lycanthropes was ‘damn it.’ Otherwise, that topic seemed mostly ignored as the enchanter skipped most of the formalities and greetings. “I got the news of your plan from a ‘Miss Yin.’ So, you need bombs huh?” There was a note of satire on his voice; it was clearly not to his style but he was willing to do it nonetheless
Desparrow was sipping on tea when Linn arrived into his abode, not even having to lift a finger in fact because the doors still do open based on the intention of those approaching. He lifted a hand to wave, “Linn! Hello!” his greeting was cut short when the subject of Ynhaldei and bombs were brought up. His gaze darted to his compatriots and with a bit of magic and mental push a chair slid out for Linn. “Please have a seat. I have no idea what Ynhaldei told you, however I know of her plan with bombs. She is thoroughly convinced in destroying Cenril. I knew this would happen at some point. I have her in my employ as little more than a secretary. She has her uses.” A raise of his hand and almost immediately tea was brought out by one of the many maids that weren’t actually scrubbing the floors or walls in offering to Linn. “She thinks blowing up the roads will help our cause. It won’t. I want to save this city. Not decimate it. It can’t be a home if it’s a damned ruin.” News that Ynhaldei was seeking out people to do things like this without his guidance was frustrating to say the least, as noted by clenched fist and claws digging into the table top.
was sipping on tea when Linn arrived into his abode, not even having to lift a finger in fact because the doors still do open based on the intention of those approaching. He lifted a hand to wave, “Linn! Hello!” his greeting was cut short when the subject of Ynhaldei and bombs were brought up. His gaze darted to his compatriots and with a bit of magic and mental push a chair slid out for Linn. “Please have a seat. I have no idea what Ynhaldei told you, however I know of her plan with bombs. She is thoroughly convinced in destroying Cenril. I knew this would happen at some point. I have her in my employ as little more than a secretary. She has her uses.” A raise of his hand and almost immediately tea was brought out by one of the many maids that weren’t actually scrubbing the floors or walls in offering to Linn. “She thinks blowing up the roads will help our cause. It won’t. I want to save this city. Not decimate it. It can’t be a home if it’s a damned ruin.” News that Ynhaldei was seeking out people to do things like this without his guidance was frustrating to say the least, as noted by clenched fist and claws digging into the table top.
Linn couldn’t help a morbid chuckle as Ynhaldei’s plan was dismissed. Slowly his eyes wandered to the tightness of Desparrow’s hand before a smile cracked his expression. “You need to better pick who works under you then. You’re lucky I’m looking to confirm what’s going on first. Otherwise… there might be problems.” Sometimes the lie was the sugar surrounding a statement; there was none here. His hand came up in refusal of the tea with a light shake of his head with a much more polite, if quick “No thanks.” When his gaze returned to the lycan he couldn’t help just being… amused, at the state of everything. It was just the way his sanity fractured and broke to when things got –weird-. “Well, if this is the case then you have to explain the plan yourself. Unfortunately with how far out I am I won’t be able to hang around any time at night. But if you need something made…” he shrugged. “I can do it. Hell I accepted the job for bombs. Anything less nasty won’t be hard to swing.”
Desparrow huffed, not upset that perhaps a darker part of his plan was now in the light, but truly because Ynhaldei was pursuing this whole city destruction. “I’ll have to talk to her. As for the plan.” He shook his head slowly, as his ‘secretary’ was brilliant tactically but he had so many issues with it. “She says we are going to start from the gorge and go through the tunnels of some bugbears, and move beneath the city. She wants to take out the roads.. I really don’t see why, especially when this next full moon we are going to try and persuade the guards to join us, and protect the city instead of fighting us when we are trying to combat the threat of Zirael while evacuating the civilians. Saving the civilians is the goal entirely. The roads will only hinder us and really.. everyone else.” Des was sure of himself that his plans would work, but even now he was still bugged by the fact that Ynh had gone over his head. “I don’t want bombs. Sure they could come in handy, but I don’t think we need them. I really don’t. If the negotiations with the guards goes bad then we might need them. If you are offering to craft something though.” He looked to his companions and sadly after some thought came up with nothing. “I’m not sure.”
Linn took to leaning against a clear spot on the wall near the door as he listened, nodding as Desparrow confirmed the details of the plan he was told. A blink as persuasion was mentioned. He had dealt with enough ‘persuasion’ from some rather creepy figures to know what it could well mean. Full moon. Well, if the legends were true he couldn’t consider that date much of a surprise. It was when Zirael was mentioned again did he nod. “Sometime I’d actually like to see her for myself. I hear a lot about her but never anything very substantial. That name gets tossed around a lot with the mention of mermaids. If we knew the tools of our enemies we could find a way to undo them from within.” Another shrug at the thought. Making the entire takeover completely unnecessary would be much more favorable.
Des was glad that Linn didn’t seem to know that he wanted the entire city, to convert it completely into a lupine army, or at least those that could change, and the curse stuck to but it didn’t change his demeanor. “Zirael, I have never met her either, to be honest. Though if she isn’t a threat, this growing crime is, and the guards have done very little about it, being hardly more than civilians with weapons and a bit of armor. It’s disgraceful really.” He finished his current cup of tea and pushed it aside as he thought of what next to say. “If you seek her out, be my guest. I can’t help but assume the worst possible scenario that a hydromancer of her alleged power could create.. And I assure you I don’t want to face the sea itself when it comes crashing down on this city I call home.”
Linn sighed and nodded as Desparrow went on about the other reasons to take over the guard. Zirael’s power only brought another morbid chuckle. “At least a tidal wave of water is predictable. There are some much smaller things that can be far nastier is pushed the right way.” A sideways glance as he thought on just what the gigantic mana crystal he carried through Sage did. That was a matter that was important to take care of now come to think of it. “Well. If there’s nothing for me to do with this plan of yours, that’d be convenient for me. I’ve actually got a sudden log of work to handle. Speaking of which!” A beat. “We’re going to have to handle that mana crystal much more frequently now. You heard of what happened to Sage?” He was talking about that mysterious line of death that suddenly appeared a day or two after their last meeting, but with the whole curse it could have been something else.
Desparrow actually had a portion of the crystal on him, a small chunk that had been growing slowly while the larger piece he had taken for himself was locked away in his special room in the back. “A tidal wave is predictable, but all the same still unmanageable, when it comes to destructive scale..” he sighed then, only knowing that the moment Linn had the opportunity the crystal was taken and he left. “I didn’t actually do a follow up on the whole crystal thing. I didn’t know it really had any adverse effects beyond what I had seen myself. Anything dreadful?” The lycan hadn’t bothered with any of it simply because he hadn’t been in sage since he withdrew all his magic and moved the pack into the seaside city.
Linn gave an exaggerated nod when Desparrow asked about what the crystal did. “There was some kind of curse in Sage that it uhh… agitated a little bit. From what I can tell it was unintentionally setting off magical spells that were lying around. Not that it –knows- or even could intend to. It’s a crystal.” Quit being silly. Seriously. “So now we have potential problems beyond what people are going to do for it. I’ve got it stored away safely and a bunch of other locations to move it to if necessary. But with how quickly you seem to be making it we need to manage it a bit better.” While that was a particular point of Linn’s suspicion, it came off as an inconvenience more than anything right now. It sure was –very- inconvenient now that he was responsible for killing a good deal of a forest. “Best to keep the buildup to somewhere it won’t kill everyone if it goes off.”
Desparrow rose a brow, genuinely surprised at the side effects the crystal had on the areas. It was certainly intriguing. “Well then. I am entirely sorry that it was like that, I had no idea. If you wish that I hold back on feeding the crystal I certainly will. I will admit that the size of the last crystal was due to months of ambient magic stored in the soil, plants and even some of the fauna of the sage where I had taken up residence. It isn’t nearly as large however I can taper off. There is work I need to do anyways with magic and I don’t want to be slighted too much in my reserves.” He chuckled then, having pushed aside the issue with Ynhaldei and now thinking of new ventures. “You know.. you have to admit.. Although dangerous it is quite interesting.”
Linn rolled his eyes up in thought for a second when Desparrow mentioned gathering up all of his magic in Sage. Made sense given the size of the first. The lycan seemed rather… ready to try and reel back the generation. A shrug. “Very interesting. But that much power?” He shook his head. “Nothing good that it could be used for. Tools made from it use so little in comparison. Either way, best to keep it building up in a place that isn’t a city if it has to. So…” another shrug as he pushed off of the wall. “Let’s split it up again. You keep around your bit for a sink and I take mine to keep it from bringing another disaster to this house.”
Desparrow waited to hear him out before getting to a stand and moving back in the hall to his special room. A key withdrawn from his pocket inserted into the slot and after an audible click followed by a clang of a heavy padlock striking the floor the door was opened. He was gone for only a few seconds with a palm sized chunk of the crystal, already having been fractured and tossed it to Linn. “The remaining piece is back in my room.” Of which was already being locked up by one of the maids. “Take it, and in due time we will see each other again. You really should visit more often.. Perhaps when all this Frostmaw business is over eh?” he grinned before taking a seat.
Linn leaned out to catch the crystal chunk before opening his pack up to put it inside. A nod at the remaining crystal. “Maybe. But as we’re figuring out Frostmaw is a sort of special place where all sorts of crazy things happen. Gone from lich attacks to civil war in a few months.” Really his life was going to a special level of hell right now with everything going on. “But yeah. If you need some kind of crazy tool or device to make things run a bit more smoothly, I’ll do it. Better than something getting destroyed because of its lack.” As things seemed to be concluding he nodded before making his way to the door.
Desparrow thought about it for a moment, “Frostmaw has been going through hell lately hasn’t it. It’s a shame, but hopefully when Hildegarde is back in power she will settle things and it will all get better. Maybe it will all start to settle..” he chuckled then, trying to imagine an implement he could use that would help. “If I think of anything, I’ll send letter.. Until then my friend, have good and safe travel home!”