RP:All Poisons Picked End With Paying the Piper

Part of the To Haunt A Hero Arc

Summary: Xersom, who greatly impacted Lithrydel as a villain in his past, briefly meets Lionel, who greatly impacted Lithrydel as a hero in his past. Both cope with the consequences and effects of their deeds.

Road to Milous

Paved with silvery gravel and lined by brush and rich flora on either side, the roadway between Kelay and Milous is one often travelled. A small wooden shack stands abandoned and decaying with time, once some type of guardpost, you assume. Harsh chittering and guttural growls echo from the rotting eaves, giving hint that some creature has now made it home. Turning away, you're faced with the option of heading east to Cenril or north to the dusty trail of Kelay Way. Rising up to the south are the grassy hills and woodlands of Sage Forest.

Lionel travels the silvery road by nightfall, dressed as he is in a fine set of ebony armor with cloth-of-gold trimming and something akin to a crimson mane. At his belt is the infamous monstrosity of a claymore that is Hellfire; even through the scabbard there are pulsing ripples of incarnadine like barely-concealed flames. He rides his pale mare, itself well-fortified in a custom suit of silver; he looks every bit the dark knight of legend. He cants his head to and fro, weary of the realm at this hour.

Xersom was a stark contrast to the hero clad in ebony armor trimmed with gold and topped by that crimson-mane-esque accents; he ambled along the silver-gravel path that sliced the famous little town in two by a hobbled limp that was aided with the presence, and use, of an old, gnarled cane. Where Lionel wore grandoise and- to be blunt- more ceremonial appearing armor, the man who so identified as an enigmatic single letter wore old, faded gray robes much like a hermit would, or some roaming madman. It was weathered and well-traveled, like the broken-in soles and straps of his sandals, which only were evident in glimpses beneath the hem of the robes. Each step lacked haste, as if overcoming some difficulty in movement and giving every stride a distinct pride, but there was a glaring juxtaposition of old and young with this stranger. His mannerisms and garb were suitable for some wizened, grayed old and crooked-formed man, but his actual body was... youthful; it was almost startlingly youthful. The hair atop his head was rich and full, as well as a deep raven in color, and his face was flawless and presented neither blemish nor misplaced crinkle. In fact, it was eerily flawless, because upon closer inspection it lacked age-lines and wrinkles of worry or laughter. The rest of his skin, made apparent by his hands and glimpses of both arms and feet as well as his exposed neck, was covered in lines and lines of tiny script. The language instantly could be recognized even in the most base of consciousness as something dark and unnatural, though only demonkind were privvy to read it; it was an infernal litany, and as 'X' drew closer, it could be clearer in sight that each tiny letter was carved into his flesh, not merely tattoo'd or written. Which further emphasized the flawlessness of his face, more easily recognizable as a mask by the line along the contours of his jaw, of which overlapped the verses upon his skin. As that pale mare's hooves brought steed and rider closer, the man, who bore all the slowness and movements of a crippled old storyteller, paused in order to bring vivid, almost luminous green eyes up toward the steed's navigator; he stood right in Lionel's path.

Lionel has no trouble commanding his mare to do as bid, for she ceases her trot and tilts forty-five degrees westward seemingly all on her own. At this angle, the man has an able appreciation of the stranger who stands silently before him. Eyes so blue they defy conventional accord scan the bizarre being with scrutiny, only to widen as Lionel tenses almost imperceptibly. If one is gifted in the art of reading a subtle man’s ambitions, they might notice his left index finger has drifted centimeters closer to the hilt of Hellfire, but when words are spoken, they are marked by a tone as casual as can be. "Friend, you block my way."

Xersom's own gaze was equally as intense, almost glowing and especially contrasted by the darkness of the night that surrounded the two travelers -one on foot in wayward path, the other on an apparent patrol. "Friend?" The voice that escaped the ancient being was, by far, the most staggering aspect of him; it was both sinister and soothing, like a madman's lullaby; it was intoxicating and dangerous all the same, like poisoned wine; it was enticing and yet foreboding at once, and put to truth the age-old idiom 'said the spider to the fly'. It might become apparent then, with the attunement of the divine and spiritual awareness of the human, that what stood before him occupied two levels of existence; 'X' existed both in the spiritual realm, with starkly different aesthetics and mannerisms were Lionel to actively try to look at him in that plane, as well as the corporeal world, as this juxtaposed aged youth. Yet, there were startling revelations available to merely the gentlest of curiosities. One of which was a haunting. Some people had a few or a single spirit or soul attached to them, following them around both unfelt, unheard, and unseen, usually victims of a murder, though upon few instances love or comraderie, loyalty or oath. The number of spirits that followed Xersom stretched behind him like a cape that extended for miles and miles, and these were not of any benevolent sort; they were all not just murdered, but apparently slaughtered by him, and perpetually follow him en masse in unheard cries and clamors that call for his death. "It is curious one might address another by 'friend', a stranger no less, in lands such as these. It takes either confidence or trust. Which are you?"

Lionel allows his vision to document the miles of restless dead, but betrays no semblance of recognition. Still, his muscles do tighten a bit further, and it’s likely all the clearer now that they do so. Through Lionel’s eyes, indeed, there is a mass of contradictions, a creature who exists on several levels and may well be possessing of considerable strength. There is also something else – he can feel it, coarsing through him like a wave, something sinister in birthright, something vehemently familiar, something not far removed from... an Immortal. The mare neighs, softly, and the man places a black-gauntleted hand upon the top of her head to soothe. At this time, it must be said, Xersom may be sensing something powerful emanating not only from the fabled hero, but from his sword as well. Of Lionel, it is a kind of warm, ethereal glow, its precise identity difficult to ascertain unless one is directly aware of long-forgotten magics from a far-away realm, a place called Ishaara, where humans and other sentients can be gifted a spirit’s own level of spiritual awareness. Of Hellfire, it is also warm, but to the point of spectacular violent impulse, a charger’s will to charge. "I am Lionel," he replies. "Dwell on colloquialisms until the sun rises, but I'm headed east and your ghosts are blocking the road for leagues."

Xersom was not directly aware of this far-away realm, though Immortals had taken their legions through many realms and destroyed a vast majority of them in their perpetual wars of light and dark; the fragment of the Nameless King retained some sort of instinctive recognition of far-away lands as well as barren, decimated worlds. Ishaara might have been one, or might not have, and 'X' would never know its name or consciously be aware of its existence without stepping foot there, himself. But in these dueling emanations and auras, where the ancient's dark was magnified by the complimenting entanglement of benevolent light and violent justice which drew from Lionel and Hellfire, respectively, there was something distinctly 'off' about the enigmatic wyrm that stood before the great hero. It was buried, or more accurately, entombed, beneath that thick darkness of not only his corporeal self in the form of Immortal residue and infernal magicks, but also (though much more diminished) in the very heart of that near-impenetrable darkness of some armored silhouette that was the vague cursory description of his existence in the spiritual realm. It was a light. A faint, tiny, flickering light that was both foreign, as if placed there by means that could only be divine, and resolute, as it existed steadfast despite the suffocating darkness that surrounded it. It was by no means a warm glow, or even anything violent as one might expect bordering the line of good and evil; it was weak, and it was tiny, but it was there. Perhaps that separated this being, that lived for a time so long his age was counted in eras rather than quantified years, from the even older antagonists and newer tyrants. "Ah, yes, well," he continued, his voice ever enthralling and tantalizingly dark, "The guilty are punished eventually, one way or another. Mine just happens to be more visible -and perplexing- than others. I'm afraid you will have to wade through them, at least until they get what they seek." The man then, with apparent difficulty that aided to the aspect of age in his duality of young and old, took a slow method to hobble out of the steed's path.

Lionel is every bit tense but for his smile, which many have found alarmingly sincere even in the most twisted of life’s moments. Alexiaisis, the mare, tilts back into a straight line at once, and Lionel’s ethereal light seems almost to shift in frequency, to diminish slightly. Is it in response to acknowledgement of Xersom’s tiniest fragment of divinity? If so, what might the shift signify? It should also be mentioned that Hellfire’s violence is at this time curbed, or even tempered somewhat. Those with a prediliction for perceiving the conscious thoughts of another will note that Lionel does not see just the nigh-endless stream of spirits trailing Xersom. No, he seems something else, too – men and women, some going about their day, some burning alive, some screaming and some conversing of the weather and of the scent of bread. There are so many, and the man is flinching to avoid eye contact with them. But they are not spiritual in nature, so only he or she who is by all counts telepathic will view them at all; they are mere psychological haunts of a man more damaged now than the old records would ever have predicted. And so the fallen, all those Lionel has failed to protect, mingle quite like dancers at a ball with the wretched ghosts of Xersom’s doing, and Lionel cuts a path through them all, into the east.

Lionel exited to the east.