RP:Came Back Haunted

Part of the To Haunt A Hero Arc

Summary: Lionel returns to Hollow, reflects on his many years away, and hallucinates a conversation with a dead friend he can't bear to remember losing.

Rocky Shore

Lionel O'Connor is a haunted man.

Lionel has returned to Hollow after eight years away. He hails now from the wreckage and ruin of his beloved Catal, his birthplace and birthright and the land he had won back through bitter war after departing these shores. Catal is nothing now; the man's enemies have seen to that. To his unending grief he has learned that foes one makes on one side of the known world can collude with those at the other end and collectively defeat him. In his dreams, the dead have eyes and they watch him, crying. In his waking hours, they appear just the same. All those Catalians he has failed; all those in Hollow he has failed. Valaria and her child; dearest love Alexiaisis herself. The names, the faces, they flow out of his broken mind when he thinks he's found a moment's peace, there to break him further. Those who know the history of this realm called Hollow will know his name; most text paints him as a cynical hero who has waged wars against great evils and lived to boast the tale. Reality is a crueler mistress than all that. No matter the infamy of the colossal bloodstained claymore at his side, that wicked blade with its pulsing flames the world calls Hellfire, no matter the truth of Hellfire's restless spirit which grants him power enough to withstand considerable physical turmoil, no matter the whispers of his era as a time of men larger-than-life, Lionel is still but a man. And men can survive wars, but wars will hurt them. Wars will knock them down. And when a man has survived the things that Lionel has endured, he changes. Usually for the worse. Here now in his ebony armor atop a trusted mare named after his late wife, the only woman he's ever loved, the haunted Lionel ascends this rocky shore in search of a long-ago friend who has beckoned his arrival. The journey there, to Frostmaw, is rife with reminiscence. "Memories flutter like bats out of hell," someone once said. It is apt. Everywhere he turns, a battle remembered. A lover's embrace recalled. An old ally's specter emerges, only to be set aflame in his mind's eye as he is forced to envision the brutal ways in which so many of them died. The journey is weeks in length. When at last Lionel and his mare reach their destination, they locate the spot at which Griff Morivan told them to wait and they venture forth, trepidation hanging heavily in the dark knight's sorrowful heart.

Forgotten Catacombs

Lionel descends the path to this theater of archaeological ruins with a skeptical face and a heavy sigh. "This is an odd place to meet, Griff, even for you." The chemist of considerable whimsy simply shrugs, but even his shrug is flamboyant. "Maybe I thought you'd be interested in the runes," he offers dryly, sorting through his bag. "Maybe you thought wrong." Lionel stretches. "How many times did we express an interest in runes only to end up with me death-dueling some pleb who thought they could use said runes to destroy the fabric of space-time?" Griff chuckles. "Lionel, my friend, you have the worst luck meeting new people. Those costumed freaks were going to ham it up at you no matter what we found. Ye of little faith, I present to you: the veilscroll." He whips out an emerald green rock, beams of soft light pulsating through like veins. "Stupid name for a slab," Lionel counters. "I didn't name the damn thing," Griff counter-sues.

Lionel doesn't have an answer to that. Griff uses the silence to explain the artifact, pacing to and fro in so doing like some kind of grown-up schoolchild. "So you see, I found this the last time I visited Demon's Archipelago. Did you know? Did you know that's what they're calling it now? It seems word spread of your little sortie with that crazy woman eleven years ago. What was her name again? The crazy woman?" Lionel is losing patience. "Which one? There were so many." Griff stares. "The one you went to Demon Archipelago with." The Catalian yawns, smirking. It's hard to smirk while yawning, but the Catalian is a man of many talents. "It wasn't called that before." "For Keane's sake, Lionel! Aeryn! Her name was Aeryn!" Lionel nods. "Keane, though? Why are you swearing on Keane?" "Well, an atheist like me needs to swear on something, and I can only swear on mine own name so many times before it's old hat. And I'll not swear on yours -- never that." He composes himself. "So," he prattles on, "I'm there, right? And there's this giant spider. And, well, farbeit for me to fight a giant spider, but there's this brute of a man, forget his name, and he thunders on to the scene, and he squishes it as if it were a tarantula. Which, I mean, I wouldn't go near a tarantula, either, but --" "Morivan," Lionel growls. "Alright, alright. so. I befriend this giant man, because I'm terrified there are more giant spiders, and he leads me to this cave. And, well. That's where I find this." Lionel grimaces. "That's it? That's your story? You found this in a cave?" The chemist bristles at that, and he shakes the stone about haphazardly; it flares up, a deeper shade, and Hellfire responds with a brighter red pulsing throughout the veins of its sheathed steel. "Yes, Hero of the Obvious, I found it in a cave. But it was on the very island that you and that she-devil slew a great evil or whatever you two were actually doing there, hint-hint, I won't judge, and as you can see plain as day, I do believe it's Ishaarite." Lionel does not miss his blade's response to the rock. He does not miss anything his blade ever does. "Wonderful," he sighs out.

Lionel stares at the thing in mild horror, until Griff holds it in such a way as to nonverbally communicate a transfer in ownership. "No," he replies. "No, chemist. I can't sleep at night. I'm haunted by it all. I won't take in anymore stowaways. Whatever's in that thing stays with you." The chemist fidgets, paces some more. Lionel's eyes follow him closely. "What's one more ghost?" Griff asks him, back turned. "Let's be blunt, here, Lionel. With so much on your shoulders, you aren't long for this world. We both know what exists within this stone, and, I... I worry about you, man. Take it. You can as much as master these things now; master this restless spirit and stick around a little bit longer. For me." He swings around, refusing to make ocular contact, and keeps the stone held outward. Lionel wants bitterly to refuse. But he also doesn't want to offend one of the few friends who haven't perished. Lionel also wants to perish, but he isn't going to say that to Griff Morivan. Silently, he takes the stone. Without another word, he exits the catacombs. He can hear his friend muttering and shouting, but all around him, he can see the faces of the dead. Lionel won't dare speak when he feels their remorse all around him.

Lionel may never know he could have spoken freely in an empty room. Griff Morivan is long dead.