RP:Brand New Day

Part of the To Haunt A Hero Arc

Summary: Dominic/Brand, two personalities residing within a Catalian slave, chances upon Lithrydel when his ship comes ashore. Lionel appears... which means explosions ensue.

Transport to Rynvale

The Cenrilian harbor normally bustled with people and trade at any hour of any day, but this evening was an exception. This evening, the Sunderia loomed over the docks alone in the fading light, and her crew and her cargo were the only ones to be seen. Her slaves carried bulky wooden boxes to and fro, their clothing only a hair better than rags and their bodies just barely nourished enough to properly carry out their work. Most of them were human, though a few dwarves and elves were present as well. Two taskmasters were stationed at the end of the dock; perhaps to stand guard against any intruders to this scene, or perhaps to intimidate anyone who might want to leave into thinking otherwise. Several more stood amongst the captive workers, armed and physically intimidating but few in number relative to the ones they were overseeing. This was a large-scale operation; surely the captain must have paid off some high ranking official or other in order to unload her goods this discreetly, and surely they must have been of some substantial value to be worth this level of caution.

Dominic concerned himself with none of this, though. He stood as if dumbstruck, freshly disembarked and taking in the ship from the outside for the first time in years. He'd forgotten just how large it was; he was so familiar with its interior that it had shrank in his mind's eye.

He closed his eyes for a moment and took in the sounds. Seagulls cried overhead. Beneath and around him, the waves flowed under the dock and threw themselves against the anchored Sunderia. Masters barked orders and slaves groaned under the weight of their burdens, but none of them had yet noticed his stillness. All so much the better, he thought. He wanted just a moment or two to breathe everything in and then he'd get back to work.

Lionel is twirling the bronze thimble recently fitted over what remains of his left ringfinger. He’s twirling it rather toyfully, and watching it spin with odd determination. The peculiar choice in evening activity probably has something to do with whatever it was that compelled him to come here to these docks – reminiscence. To say that Lionel has had a lot to reminisce over in the fortnight since his return to Lithrydel would be an immense exercise in understatement. Everything has happened so quickly, as everything is wont to do in the life of this fallen hero. Twirling a thimble, really peering into it, is reminding him that he’s mortal, after a fashion. Halycanos breathes profound magical strength and the taint of Khasad offers incredible speed and defense, but he’s ultimately still human. And he will soon enough die as one. This, Lionel finds, is most reassuring. Here at these docks, a boy who would be prince came to Lithrydel all those years ago, and in short order a man was born. A hero. A champion. Also, a vigilante. A violent and unflinching challenger. Behind him, in the shade of an oddly-placed tree between boardwalk planks at the start of the path from Cenril, his powerful mare, Alexia, neighs softly. Those neighs grow louder over time as a ship comes to port, some distance from Lionel’s chosen haunt. It’s the only one. Its build is familiar – could it be Catalian? Perhaps, but judging by its agile construction and considerable bow, it could also be Revezi, or Karchanite, or Angu. Still, it’s enough to draw full attention from the man, who adjusts his button-up back shirt the collar, flinching in mild agony as cuts and bruises from the recent encounter with Corruption protest to his rushed actions. In due time the crew comes into view, all humans in possession of sharp noses and frequently olive skin and lithe and graceful. And speaking of possession, some are clearly the owners of some others. From shadowy distance, Lionel gauges. There can be no mistaking it. These truly are Catalians. “Be ready for my signal,” he whispers to his horse, who does not offer so much as a hint of recognition to the command. He moves in darkness, creeping closer.

Dominic || All good things must come to an end, and so of course Dominic’s near-meditative state was rudely interrupted at last. This particular taskmaster loomed at least a foot above him in height, and now stood so as to cast an intimidating shadow over him. Dominic nearly jumped out of his skin, so startled was he. But the large man said nothing but simply stood there, casually tossing a rune stone from one broad hand to the other. The message was as clear as it was silent -- “get back to work unless you want this used on you.” Dominic stammered nervously and glanced around for something that needed carrying. If he was considering saying something, it quickly died on his lips as he found an opportunity to look busy. Pick things up from over here, move them over there. Follow everyone else and blend in; look like you belong out here. He’d gotten his tasty morsel of freedom and now it was time to work for it.

Lionel raises Hellfire high in the air as he rushes as at an almost supernatural speed toward the vessel. In an instant his cover is ruined; the claymore bursts into its flame-filled splendor, melting away the phantom sheath and giving slavers and slaves alike significant cause for extraordinary concern. He waves it around in a repeating figure-eight so fast that onlookers may well see a tremendous balled inferno and precious little else, and before the taskmasters can so much as bring steel, one is incinerated and the other has been knocked into the water with a swift and sudden gauntleted punch to the face. Indeed, Lionel does not even require two hands for this ordeal; the man has become as gods in this respect. Ending his elsewise-infinite swinging pattern, he stands tall and mighty, and speaks boldly: “Release your prisoners or turn to ashes.”

Dominic had had his back turned to this most unlikely of disturbances as it began, but he recognized the reflection of fire on the ocean water before anything else and nearly dropped the box he’d been holding onto his toes. As the disruption continued, he ducked into the shadows of some cargo to watch from relative safety and get an understanding of the situation. Brand, ever the aggressive voice in his head, spoke to him directly for perhaps the first time in days; he chomped at the bit at what he saw as an opportunity, and despite his overarching desire for caution Dominic couldn’t entirely disagree. At a distance of perhaps three or four yards stood a man who seemed to have stepped out of some impossible legend, his stance practiced and confident. Around this man slavers and slaves alike scattered away like vermin. And of course they did; no one but the very brave or the very stupid wants to contend with a flaming sword. And maybe the captain and Dominic’s master was one or the other or perhaps even both -- Dominic had never known enough of the woman to say for sure -- but, whatever her reasons or her nature, she had headed to the ramp off the ship straightaway and now stood before this impossible man with his impossible sword, her own sword drawn. It seemed impressive in its own right, Dominic observed -- runes glowed an alluring turquoise along the blade, surely giving it some magical properties of its own -- but somehow he doubted it compared to a claymore of fire. It didn’t seem to phase her, however. She stood proudly between the intruder and the Sunderia, her posture battle-ready and her countenance nothing but angered. She spoke to the man, but Dominic could not make it out above the alarmed chatter of his fellow captives, most of whom had now crowded curiously what they deemed to be a safe distance away. Behind Lionel, three more taskmasters, perhaps the most particularly foolhardy or loyal ones, approached as the captain continued on with whatever it was she was saying, hands to their various armaments.

Lionel tilts his right leg into a lean forward and straightens his left, but remains steady. The woman before him perks a brow at his show, gripping her rune-encrusted blade in one extended hand so that its turquoise-fringed tip is just stray inches from his skull. Lionel has allowed this; it changes little. “The Sunderia has never before bowed to the whims of fool men with parlor tricks aplenty, nor shall she start today. I do not doubt that some will fall, but you cannot best us all.” Lionel’s face is blank canvas. He glances ever-so-briefly beyond the captain and over to her chosen champions, then to the slaves as they scurry, then back to her once more. “You twisted Catalian national phrase into defense of criminal activity,” he observes, rather nonchalant delivery despite the palpable tension of it all. “That’s tough to forgive. You may want to start running.” The captain is visibly flustered and moves her lips as if to ask how a man of Lithrydel could possibly recognize this, but Lionel is far quicker as he arcs Hellfire up high and then down low, sending a surge of heat and steam outwards to force the quartet of them into shielding their eyes. With a quick elbow to the ribs he thrusts the captain into assuming a defensive posture; she sends her sword to meet his, pulsing as its runes detect a vile threat, but Hellfire merely melts the whole thing into a steely slump in her grasp. She gasps loudly, stumbles back to allow the taskmasters to have at her foe, and shouts with a hand to her mouth. “You’re him?” Lionel has already leapt back a full meter to avoid his remaining competition, all of whom fan out to greet him, weapons drawn and dangling. He leaps again, then again, a mockery of jumps, and then he whistles, and Alexia trots growing-gallop hard into them all, crushing bones and pride in one fell swoop. She neighs and swivels off the boat to come up behind Lionel, who is upon the slavers with the lethality of a killer. He decapitates one, then the next, then the next, a butcher’s block of flowing grace.

Dominic crouched in his same spot, rooted by his astonishment. For all his years of murderous missions, he was more than certain his own skills came up drastically short next to those of this interloper. But that was all the thought he had the opportunity to think; Brand was tearing through him like a starving jackal through a fresh kill, determined to wrest control of their shared form. Brand knew nothing in this moment but a lust for revenge for what felt like eons of being subdued, both by the personality that shared his body and by various captors over the years. Bursting forward with a one-handed vault over his previous hiding spot, Brand -- for it was most certainly fully Brand in control now -- bounded into view and up the ramp and into the interior of the ship after the captain. Their mutual anatomy shifted mid-sprint to the physical avatar of the personality in the forefront. Black hair turned a rusty blonde, skin became rougher and many various burns and scars made themselves apparent… and perhaps most jarring of all to any and all onlookers, even his legs seemed to gain in length as he ran, and his strides grew longer and more assured with every further lunge into the interior. Above, the captain emerged through a set of double doors onto the top, outside deck of the Sunderia and flew toward the bow of the ship and behind the protection of two of her armed guardsmen. Only a handful of seconds later, Brand erupted out those same doors, a rune stone -- he must have picked it off someone on his way up to the top -- nested in one hand and a growing ball of flame in the other. He barrelled through the captain’s guards; one landed a deep gash through the side of Brand’s torso but he seemed to pay neither them nor it any mind. His mind was only on vanquishing their so-called master. He would not allow these unusual circumstances to go to waste. He could not.

Lionel notes the altered form of one of the prisoners, lofts a brow, and waves Hellfire about if for no other reason than to get some of the blood out of the flames – it’s annoying! He stands still as numerous slaves, terrified of his presence as much as any of their owners, bolt past him on their way into the city. Of Cenril, it should be noted that alarm bells are ringing, thundering through the night. Guardsmen are gathering in mild disbelief, but mostly they recognize Lionel and they’re keeping a wide berth. The fallen hero waves his blade about in almost a tut-tut; he clicks his tongue, too, but no one is going to hear that from this range. The message is clear: the guards will leave them be. And so they do. They let them pass and they aren’t pleased but they won’t defy. Most of the slaves are dispersed by now and several remaining slavers are offering no resistance, but in a couple of key cases, they’re being bludgeoned to bits despite it. Anger is a poor thing to let boil overlong. The ship’s captain is frantic, scurrying about, cursing a string of old Catalian curses too thick with fear to fully comprehend. “Lionel, if that’s truly you, I surrender, damn you! I surrender!” She spits, but her guardsmen, dwarves both, are mid-swing of their axes, one to Brand’s head and the other to his thigh, dire strikes if they connect. Only too late do they recognize the captain’s cry, but it may well be that Brand won’t cease regardless…

Dominic || Brand let loose his ball of flame toward the the Catalian captain before she’d even finished her few sentences of surrender. It wasn’t that he didn’t recognize what she was saying -- he just didn’t give a damn. But in the precise moment he did this, several things happened virtually at once: firstly, one of the guards he’d carelessly pushed past seconds ago struck a blow to the back of his thigh, the momentum of the act throwing him off balance and sending him crashing forward. Secondly, the near-simultaneous strike to the back of his head grazed just above him as he fell. To have hit with one strike and thus spare their target from another, surely these guards were lacking in tactics -- or perhaps Brand was just freakishly lucky. But if it was luck, it was all used up in this fortuitous dodge, for as he dropped to the deck the fireball he’d thrown forward careened off the path he’d intended and hurtled upwards in a bizarre and absurd curve, instead smacking cleanly into the foremost mast of the ship and sending the whole thing smashing down across almost the entire length of the deck. New flames sprang up everywhere the mast landed; a particularly unfortunate third guard some distance away was promptly murdered by the mast and cremated all at once. The fresh blaze created just enough distraction for Brand to rise to his feet, favoring his uninjured leg, and retreat to a better stance. Reason had finally overcome fury within him just enough to realize that, even with the fireball doing some sizeable if accidental damage, maybe he had better actually use some damn strategy in his maneuvers if he wanted to survive. Deaf to any cries of surrender from his targets, he began to charge up for another blast, with the intention of incinerating the captain and her two lackeys from the feet up. He wanted their screams to be the last of them to fade.

Lionel shakes Hellfire twice in a very rigid motion. The flames are at once completely extinguished. He brings it around to his backside, phantom sheath spawning to encase it all-the-while, and holsters the colossal thing whilst grabbing his mare’s harness and pulling himself on up. As the Sunderia begins to quake and buckle at the fiery blast before him, he wiggles his collar and Alexia takes off at a slow and steady pace, up the ramp, past guards more concerned with mostly-vain efforts to thwart the attack, and then up a steep ascending stair, to the blazing mast. Almost comically, he surveys the damage; planks come undone just meters away and the chaos spreads rapidly. Alexia cants her head sideways in protest, but he soothes her, hand on nose, gently. A red field envelops man and horse alike; it slows the falling of woods and redirects metals to bounce off into the sea. “Hey, you there, black-to-blonde, you’ve really done a number on all this. Can’t say as I blame, but – oh bugger off, then!” He’s rudely interrupted by the repeat attempts of certain obnoxious lackeys to, rather than flee from pending incineration, continually attack Brand. Irritated, he gallops up behind them, pulls out a pair of serrated knives – Catalian make, go figure! – and stabs them both squarely in the shoulders as they wheel around to face the threat. Any incoming fireballs will be hard-pressed to break through a protective field of Immortal design, to be sure. The men can’t do much but yelp, although they yelp rather well, a real get-out-of-town kind of yelp, but they’re trapped between a horse and a hot spot. As for the poor captain, well, she’s had quite enough of all this, being that she was lit aflame. She’s quite dead.

Dominic || Brand seemed to have observed the purpose of the crimson barrier at some point since Lionel cast it -- that, or he was entirely apathetic to the idea of causing collateral damage. It was difficult to tell which from his expression. The dwarves were set aflame, the last of their crew. Ignoring Lionel for the moment, the man took a halting step toward the dead captain, then another, this second one on his injured leg. He wobbled unsteadily while squinting in the direction of the former master, frowned, grunted, then threw his free hand out and zapped her with a spark. Just to make sure, that. Seemingly satisfied when she didn’t cry out or move or do much of anything but continue to sizzle, Brand allowed himself to fall to his knees, Lionel in his peripheral. The rune stone he’d been holding dropped out of his grasp and fell with a dull thud just in front of him. One breath, slow and ragged. Two. Three. His form, well, it flickered briefly, as if it might shift again. But only the once. Around them, only the crackle of the spreading fire could be heard. If Brand felt any urgency about getting away from this scene, he didn’t show it -- or maybe he was too spent to do much more than he was doing already. Four breaths. Five. Six. And then a heavy sigh, and the man turned his head slightly more to face his fellow Catalian. His countenance haggard, he panted out a question so broad that it could have had any number of intended meanings: “What… now?”

Lionel leaps off of Alexia, all rather dramatically. He pats the horse on her snout, snaps his fingers, and sends her ahead on her way, back across the mast, down the stairs, and do mind the fire. His energy field dissipates in so doing, but he doesn’t much seem to mind; he peers over at the fallen stone, shrugs, and then swirls his hand around in a motion to indicate their surroundings. “Well, you’ll be wanting your trinket, maybe,” he mumbles, “and you aren’t looking so well just now, but that tends toward perennial for men whose lives are slaves. Up you go, though, on your feet; this boat is unfit for… um, anything, really.” Everything is fallen to bits and ribbons. The veritable maelstrom Brand started has spread so far so fast; this is a terribly-designed ship, Lionel realizes. Just terrible, the whole sight of it. In moments she’ll be all crumbled and vanquished and he has no intention to be here when that happens. Yet he seems apprehensive about forcing Brand upright. Instead he just stands there, pensive, in the eye of the storm. Kind of awkward, really.

Dominic || Brand laughed, of all things. More precisely, he laughed for a beat and then froze rigid, involuntarily sucking in a shaky breath through his teeth. He placed his right hand gingerly over his earlier torso wound and then extended it halfway out in front of him. It came away from his side soaked in crimson. He relaxed his posture and laughed some more, heartily and sounding more than a bit deranged given the context. “I, ah,” he managed through gasps as his fit faded, “I don’t know… what I expected…” The man paused here to seize the etched stone he’d dropped with his left hand and shove it into a trouser pocket, “...but kid, you weren’t it.” While he spoke, he rose delicately and slowly to an upright position and then hobbled his way over to stand before the other. He peered at him through scrunched up eyes. “Lionel, eh?” he asked, jerking his head back in the direction of the dead captain, clearly referencing the name she’d called him shortly before her brutish death. “The Lionel? Well, I suppose thanks are in order regardless, but, ah, beggin’ your pardon if I don’t bow in this sorry state.” He held his sullied hand out, palm facing Lionel, and chuckled again. He didn’t particularly come across like someone who would have bowed, no matter his condition. He was… irreverent. Delirious from blood loss, maybe. And then somewhere beneath them and entirely too close, there was a rumbling with a disturbing resemblance to the sound of a deck collapsing onto the one below it. Brand winced, muttering something under his breath before addressing Lionel again. “At any rate, you’re right about the blasted ship. And I’m like as not a dead man walking without a healer but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna die here. How ‘bout I find us a way off this frakking thing and you satisfy a dead man’s curiosity by telling me what your angle is?”

Lionel seems happy to comply, although curiously silent for the whole matter. He grabs Brand by the outstretched hand, helps to hoist him atop Alexia's considerably lengthy backside, and hops aboard himself, patting her once on the forehead as she wheels around and makes way off of the ship. "The ship is indeed rather in a flux," he mumbles, all too understatedly. It isn't long from exploding when they've gotten themselves to shore -- a big vivid boom which reverberates and reflects upon the water and contrasts the increasingly apathetic Cenrilian guardsmen down city-way. Truly, they seem to have expected this. "We'll get you patched up right as rain, but my angle is pretty plain. I don't like seeing slaves, surely not Catalian slaves. There aren't many of us left, and I never expected to find more of them here. You can saunter out of Lithrydel when you're finished with your healing, if you like; I'll find a boat or a raft or a canoe or at least an accommodating avian."

Dominic || Brand probably would have liked to have responded with something witty and humorous, or at least sarcastic. But sometime during the transition from ship to shore, Brand’s adrenaline rush had faded considerably, and with it his alertness and force of will. Lionel’s words sort of burrowed themselves into his semi-consciousness and nestled there to perhaps be heard and comprehended another time. He slumped forward somewhat onto the man in front of him, the last of his awareness barely enough to keep him from falling off the horse sideways and certainly not enough to care about who he was leaning on. His shape flickered again and then shifted in the reverse to how it had before; the black-haired, smaller form of this living schism now lay against Lionel’s back. This one slumped further and mumbled something about maelstroms.

Lionel passes through half of Cenril en route to the only clinic in town he's ever trusted. Most of the personnel has shifted in all the years since last he lived in this land, but the chief-of-staff is still the same wizened and almost impossibly old man that he was when Lionel himself was but a middling adolescent. As they travel, Alexia at a sturdy enough gallop to make good time but not so daring as to plow through foot traffic, the man notes the frigid and overwhelmed faces of several of Dominic's fellows. They won't know what to do. None of them will know what to do. Lionel does as Lionel does -- whenever he passes one, he tosses ample coin. It will serve them in some capacity. It must. "Just be careful," he warns to the chief-of-staff, Dominic's tired and malnourished form brought down gently. "Some kind of transformation. The whole body changes." The old man stiffens, harumphs. "Magic?" Lionel shrugs. "I'd be more concerned if it weren't." Multiple aides are bringing water, fetching towels, lining examination rods about the patient. All-the-while, the old man is nodding -- almost to the point of nodding off, it seems, but in fact he's being quite thoughtful of the matter -- and Lionel is scribbling something on ruffled parchment which he places beside their mystery Catalian. "Not going to stay?" The chief asks. Lionel shakes his head. "It's a busy night." They both laugh; some classified joke that goes straight over the heads of all the rest of them. The note is placed alongside a sum of coin and the man departs posthaste.

"This is Lithrydel. There is a land here called Vailkrin. Find me there if you wish. Ask after me at the Hanging Corpse. I know, I know. The name is awkward. Look, I didn't ask to live in Vailkrin. It just sort of happened. That's how it is, so go there, don't mind the undead (honestly, I took care of quite a few of the more restless ones just this past week -- funny story, that -- well, maybe you wouldn't find it funny -- well, it involved quite a bit of... actually, very little bloodshed, because they're undead -- heh) and inquire as to the whereabouts of either Lionel or Hildegarde. Queen Hildegarde ought to be able to find me if I am not available. Sometimes I am not available because oftentimes I am fighting evil demons and sadistic murderers hellbent on destroying the world. Speaking of which, sorry about Catal. You see, I wrested control free from the Tyrs but demons from this realm eventually tracked me down and came pouring in through the ether, so to say. And that wasn't pretty. So now I don't quite know why I wake up in the morning, but I do -- I wake up in the morning -- and I keep on fighting. And I think tomorrow morning you're going to wake up and you're going to ask yourself those self-same questions. And I think you'll find cause to keep up the good fight, be that baking or quilting or fishing or fleecing or diving daggers deep into the dark hearts of unearthly abominations. And you can do any of those things here or anywhere else. The choice is yours. -Lionel (as previously mentioned)"