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Ben d'Tarkanan INTRO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q7v-413_Ys

     Gilded Vale is a relatively small village in the north of the Free Palatinate of Dyrwood. As you might imagine by the name, the Dyrwood is quite heavily forested in places, and those places off the beaten path are teeming with wild animals. The nation earned its independence from another, some 150 years ago, and is inhabited mostly by the descendants of former colonists, and the descendants of indigenous tribes those colonists once battled. Having been allies during the war of independence, these two groups mostly tolerate each other.

     Gilded Vale is a community of the descendants of colonists, rather than a Glanfathan (the collective name of the native people) community. There is no warpgate which leads directly to Gilded Vale. Instead, you will have to gate in to one of the Dyrwood's more populated areas, and travel north. The closest warpgate leads to a broken bridge just outside the nation's capital, Defiance Bay, with a road that stretches into a thick forest to the north. This road will eventually lead you to Gilded Vale.

     Given that the gate near Defiance Bay is two days south of Gilded Vale, those who came by gate (and have no faster means of travel) will be walking north. The further you get from the capital, the more heavily forested your surroundings become. Keep going, and you reach a mountain range with freezing cold on the other side--but luckily, Gilded Vale isn't /that/ far north.

     Out here, it is not uncommon to encounter animals either peering out at you from the alpine woods, or grazing just off the side of the dirt road. Those animals of a predatory nature are unusually bold, and sometimes must be driven off by force.
Ben d'Tarkanan      When you reach the village, you will quickly find that the name is much prettier than the place itself. The overcast skies give it a grey and dreary appearance, the air a cool and unfriendly early-winter breeze. The grass is green--barely. It clings to the dirt in patchy splotches, as if something were trying to wipe it out. The bare branches of dead trees and bushes, once flush with life, now point in every direction like accusing fingers.

     The buildings here appear to have been constructed at mostly the same time. With one exception, they are affairs of grey stone and green clay shingles. They might have been charming once, when the trees were alive and the grass wasn't struggling to stay alive. In the dreary greyness of this place, the colors just look sickly. None of the villagers look happy to be here. They look, for the most part, a mixture of tired, weary, and on-edge.

     Entering from the south, there are a few points of interest. On your right, there is a smithery. On that same road, a little further, is a windmill, where there are several men engaged in an argument with one singular fellow--perhaps the owner. If you instead follow the road as it breaks left, you will find an inn, where an elf with long black hair and several locals appear to be in a /different/ argument. Ben described this place as 'lovely.' It probably wasn't like this two years ago. Hopefully.

     By far the most striking sight in town, and the most contrary to Ben's earlier descriptor of 'lovely,' is right in the center of town. The ruins of something once important stand here, stones laying upon the ground as if no one has bothered to clean them up. Here you'll find Ben's horse, hitched to a post which likely sees little use these days. The horse's white coat, which normally looks noble if somewhat ostentatious, here seems ghostly, taken in with the general coldness of Gilded Vale.

     Rising from the dirt on the same plot of the ruins is a great and crooked tree. Once, this tree might have been a gathering place for the townspeople. Now, however, it is a grisly warning of some sort. Bodies in various states of decay dangle at the end of ropes hung from the tree, the most recent seeming to be a dwarf with brown skin, dark hair and a distinctive set of spectacles.

     At the foot of the tree, you'll find a blond-haired man in scale armor, puffing thoughtfully at a pipe. Beside him stands Ben, frowning, transfixed on the gruesome tree. If addressed, he doesn't respond at first.

     Gilded Vale BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIidxdSPtyg
Sumiko Appearing at the warp gate, Sumiko has a new style of outfit.  A leather top and a pair of thick leather pants and a pair of boots.  She was going to be traveling around, might as well look the part.  Over her shoulders is a dark green cloak with a hood.  With the hood over her face, she makes her way through the city.  

Fortunately, this gave her time to enjoy the town the gate opened into before actually having to make an annoying trip.  A few pieces of local jewelry make it onto her person, before deciding to move on.

Pressing her hand into the ground a strange four-legged creature appeared, made of what might be considered glass.  It was definitely see-through, though the light would be slightly distorted because it seemed to be made out of SOLID glass.  Two wings were located on the creature, and when Sumiko lept on top of it it seemed unbothered by her weight.

Time later, she landed on the edge of the village, the glass creature carrying her on foot as she sampled the town directly.  Wrinkling her nose at the 'nice' town she was promised.  The town had seemed better...days, was a slight understatement, but she does remember where she came from.  

Yeah, no, this was worse.  At least you could still find the occasional place with electricity, internet, and water.  Indoor plumbing was such a great invention she came to take for granted she realized.  Finally, she comes to the center of the town, leaping off of her glass ride as it shatters into bits of nothingness.  

Before she could complain to Ben, she notices the tree.  That was...awful?  People hanging from the tree and not even being buried.  She knew this place was backward, but holy shit this was beyond even her wildest imaginings.  "You know what, I wasn't prepared for this," she says with a pause, "Well, why aren't you cutting them down and giving them a proper burial?  I'd offer to help, but you obviously won't be able to afford my rates."
Ezra Mochizuki Ezra Mochizuki ran here, so it took much, much less than two days to arrive here. As he arrives outside the town, his special suit is removed and folded into a pocket, having needed it both for safety and also for the predators who decided to cause him problems and needed to be punched into the snout.

The man is dressed in a travel coat, fairly 'medieval' but also clearly something from a more modern world if you pay attention, pants, and boots. Dark hair, dark eyes, only his left hand is visible of his prosthetics - black metal.

He got here a bit early, so he talked to some sources near the town. Ezra wanted to know who in town needs help, even if they're not being forthcoming about it, as well as what exactly they need and how he can provide it.

Right now, he's holding a bottle of water in one hand, taking a long drink, as he patrols, before moving over to the argument with the elf.

Ezra starts by eavesdropping. If it turns out to be even a little interesting, he steps up to the group to talk to them. "Hello! Professional interloper, what's going on here?"
Ben d'Tarkanan EZRA - 09:40 (Morning)

     Ezra's extreme speed allows him to arrive in Gilded Vale before the others--at one point, he can be fairly certain he sped by Ben astride his horse. Accordingly, Ezra witnesses something the others don't. Everyone in town appears to be gathered near the Hanging Tree, murmuring anxiously amongst themselves. The blond-haired man in his scale mail is there, puffing at a pipe and frowning. Somewhere in the sea of trees to the north, a bell chimes. Once. Twice.

     "Don't let there be a third..." murmurs one of the villagers. There is.

     A dour man at the front of the crowd announces a moment of silence for Lord Raedric's unborn child. After, the crowd disperses, and Ezra is able to see the beginning of the argument as it unfolds. The professional interloper finds that, unsurprisingly for a town like this, many need help. Aufra in that house over there seeks the help of an apothecary living on the shore of nearby Anslog's Compass, hoping for some mixture that can protect her unborn child from becoming a Hollowborn. The smith appears to have lost a shipment to bandits. The tavern's cook is AWOL, and, of course, there is the argument right in front of the tavern.

     "There's nothing... 'going on,'" says the elf after a nervous chuckle. "I was just explaining to these gentlemen that they were mistaken."

     "Mistaken my ass," says one of the Dyrwoodans. "This Aedyr cocksucker insulted us!"

     The elf's face contorts into a sneer, and seems in one moment a completely different person. Even his accent changes. "Fye," spits the elf, "yer just achin' for the kindling touch of yer sister, ye coxfither!"
Lilian Rook     There was a possibility of coming here by foot or by horse. It might've been charming in a rustic way. Especially camping out under the light of the stars in the first case. Embracing the local experience. Discovering what it's like to be someone who lives here.

    Yes, but screw that though because Lilian has like a *million* things to do and cannot spare a two day vacation to walk along dirt roads.

    Since Tamamo is coming with her, she can't leave *her* to walk around or ride a horse. Refusing to come here early, and minutes out of the Warpgate, while nobody (important) is around, she insists on just picking her up and taking her there herself. Rapid response style, as she'd begun learning three years ago and mastered in one, albeit not at nearly the same speed, because bridal carrying someone at that speed would just leave them a windblown mess. She has to respect appearances, after all.

    She also doesn't show up in a combat suit, especially. She *absolutely refuses* to show up, however, in appropriately bland medieval clothing. These people get 'elegant gothic' at best, mostly in red, albeit also with real shoes. That and an absurdly expensive and pretty jeweled hairpiece and bracelet.

    Also, so nobody gets the idea of figuratively 'taking a swing', a visible sword. A very perfectly ordinary (if seven thousand credits) one.
Ben d'Tarkanan      SUMIKO - 10:10 (Morning)

     Ben doesn't respond. It's as if he were somewhere else.

     The straw-haired man smiles apologetically at her. "You must be new," he says. His accent is a drawl very similar to that of the southern US. "Raedric had 'em hanged," explains the armored fellow, nodding to the bleak-looking forest north and east of town. Above the trees you can barely see the peak of a fortress. "We cut them down, he sends his men here to cut /us/ down."

     The man looks over his shoulder at Ben. "I figure he's trying to guess if the dwarf counts as a person. I say, yeah--so that makes it seven." He shrugs. "Can't see why you'd stare at it so long, if you're not trying to count how many's up there."
Tamamo     Tamamo mentioned a wish to investigate this place some time ago, though it's purely coincidental that she'd been on the same job as Ben quite recently. Coming out of the gate near Defiance Bay, rather than going directly on the road, she takes the time to inquire at the nearest coaching inn (or otherwise the nearest stables), to acquire horses for herself and others of her party who might need them.

    As it plays out, this is reduced down to just the one horse, which is handed over to Edward. Surely a rental horse will be sufficiently docile for someone without a horsemanship background, and if anything should happen--well, that's Tamamo put down an appropriate amount of solid gold as collateral. The horse will, ideally, be returned afterward. In the meantime, Tamamo acquires coffee, courtesy of Ed, thanking him courteously. If 'break room black' doesn't agree with her palate, she is far too polite to give the slightest sign of it. She does remark that it's quite stronger than the tea she usually drinks.

    Tamamo is initially fussy with Lilian, but that smooths over on the trip to Gilded Vale. This is certainly a quick way of getting there, but something feels at least slightly undignified about using this particular means without a significant need, and 'skipping the rustic forest trails' doesn't strike her as quite significant enough. Still. It's a nice view from up here, and she's vocally appreciative of that, if muted by the wind. One just has to hold on tight, as something would be liable to get broken in the fall.

    Eventually, without too much else happening, she arrives, in an outfit that just screams 'foreign priestess,' even apart from the three tails and the tall ears, but nevertheless, she's here.
Edward Blackwell      It's the trees.

     Claustrophobic. Arcing branches. Too thin to hold up the sky. Too thin to hold up the stars. They're a shaking roof threatening to fall at any minute. Creaking. Cracking. A whisper in the wind is all it would take. Then they'd drop. They'd drop down on someone underneath. Someone caught in the dust. Someone caught in the debris. The roof would fall, and with it, the sky, and somebody would disappear.

     Flick, flick. The silver lighter snaps to life. The stick is lit. Smoke trails through a light forest of stubble to join the stench clinging to the bone-white labcoat. To the night-black jeans. To the brown backpack. To the Aztechnology tee-shirt.

     Edward's had it for twenty-four hours.

     It already reeks.

     He's a human industrial zone. A walking factory. Grime-window eyes reflect dreary grey in filthy brown. Brown coffee stain on the white coat, wasted fuel. Sneakers splattered with concrete dust and ash leave black trails where Edward walks. There's a lot of ash. A lot of dust.

     The borrowed horse is long since gone. Docile is one thing. Incompetent rider is another. It died three times on the way. Once from a head wound when it smashed into a tree. Once when they were attacked by a bear. Once when it fell into a sinkhole. Edward got tired of it. Cut it loose and just went walking. He didn't pay for it. He'll make it up some other way. Fucking thing spilled his coffee.

     Here and there are people he shoves or pushes over. It's an accident. Probably. They're healed, though. They're always healed. Little aches. Little pains. Inexplicable. Probably just happenstance. Nobody could do that on purpose.

     He reaches the tree.

     Edward stops.

     Edward looks at the bodies.

     Flick, flick. Another light. Another cigarette pulled from the coat pocket. He's doing two now. Might be three soon. Grime-window eyes don't meet Ben's. Fingers twitch around the lighter.

     Don't do it.

     Fingers twitch around the lighter. Eyes narrow.

     Don't do it.

     Mind, racing. Fire through the pathways. Madness peeks under a mop of brown hair. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't connect the lines. Don't see how to do it. Close your eyes.

     He can't close his eyes.

     He can't stop staring.

     No words. No exchange. Just the dead, swinging, unburied. He can fix it. He can fix it. He can fix it. He can fix it. He can fix it.

     He couldn't fix last night.

     He doesn't remember last night.

     Waking up in a bed at the Aegis Astray. Pack of supplies on his back. Covered in blood. What happened? Nobody would tell him. Just that they brought him back.

     He couldn't fix last night.

     With an irritated grunt and a sigh, Edward reaches down, picks up a rock, and flicks it straight through one of the ropes to bring down the most decayed corpse. With a purposeful stride he walks over to it. The smoke curls around his face. A better view. What happened? What was his death?

     When someone inevitably objects what they see is those eyes. Those eyes, those grime-brown eyes, those grim brown eyes. Those kindly demon's eyes.

     Once he's ascertained the cause of death he sits down properly, lights another smoke, and pulls out a tazer.
Strawberry Princess      As both an emissary of her world's good will and a testing-bed for experimental technology, Strawberry Princess has a certain amount of discretionary time to pursue her own do-goodery initiatives. She does not have "two days" worth of discretionary time, or if she does, she isn't willing to spend it on footslogging her way through a forest.

     What she is willing to spend is about a pound and a half of plutonium.

     Once on the other side of the warpgate (and safely out of a habitable area), she revs up her nuclear-powered wand- glittery transformation sequence and all- and rockets into the sky on glittering wings. "Two days' journey" blurs past in about two blistering, stratospheric minutes.

     But when she arrives at Gilded Vale, Strawberry Princess... isn't. She SCRAMs the wand before entering the town, control rods bolting fully into place, and transforms back into a plain-looking- if appallingly tall- hoodie-wearing twentysomething. Even before stepping foot in the outskirts, she can read the mood of this place. Wearing a pastel costume would feel blasphemous.

     She instinctively percolates towards the center of the town, subconsciously drawn in by the unglimpsed spectacle. And when it does hit her eyes, she stops still thirty feet away, her face visibly blanching. Strawberry's eyes squeeze shut, like she could somehow black it out with just her eyelids. She can't handle this. Not because she hasn't seen worse things, but because she has.

     Edward's affront gives her an excuse to focus on something, anything else. "Hey! Hey, you- you can't. I'm sorry, we don't even..." She lays a hand on his shoulder from behind, then recoils when he meets her eyes. She doesn't look away from him, though, because the immediate alternative is looking at the *body*. "... I don't know what you're doing, but this is awful. Please don't," she finishes lamely. Her voice is sandpapery, halting, uncertain.
Ben d'Tarkanan LILIAN, EDWARD and TAMAMO- 10:10 (Morning)

     Lilian and Tamamo are able to secure transportation easily in Defiance Bay. Horses are sold there, and while they are perfectly mundane animals, the roads in the Dyrwood have been worn into reliable, flat dirt paths over its history. The two of them in particular seem to broadcast 'noble,' and the villagers here have never seen clothes like Tamamo's.

     No one seems to want to pick a fight with them, although the trip TO the village did involve a minor skirmish with bandits who foolishly thought the two of them to be easy pickings for their apparent display of wealth and prestige. And, of course, for Edward's apparent lack of both.

     The most recent death is that of the dwarf the straw-haired man described to Sumiko. She might have looked like someone's vibrant, humorous grandma in life--even with the bloat of death her features seem as though they were given to smiles and laughter. She was an older woman, and evidently a woman of science, if those complex-looking bifocals she wears are any indication.

     The cause of death was hanging--but he will find more information than that, if he looks deeper. She was killed because she couldn't help Raedric's wife deliver a non-Hollowborn child. Everyone in this tree was. Several people *react* to his striking her body down from the tree. Whether they object isn't immediately clear. Among them is Ben.

     Until now, there was a low, droning kind of anguish radiating from him, as if this scenery pulled him away from the world. "I..." He frowns and shakes his head, running a hand through his hair. "This is not the Gilded Vale I remember. Eder, what happened?"

     The straw-haired man, evidently named Eder, shrugs sadly. "Things were already getting there, last time you were here. Think I'm the only Eothasian left, and folk are getting to be mighty unfriendly with me."

     "But..." Ben looks askance at Eder, gesturing to the tree. "Why?"
Tony Stark ABOUT AN HOUR AGO
The Stark Compound, Upstate New York

"Wakey wakey children, daddy's bored." Tony groans, spinning a pen around his finger and sipping black coffee from a 'World's Greatest Dad' mug, with the 'Dad' crossed out and replaced with 'Avenger'. It looks cheap, and is thus expensive and custom.

"Well, I've prepared a list of humanitarian and mercy missions." Friday quips.
"And we have... how many armors untasked?" Tony deadpans.
"Twelve."
"Well then it looks like your favorite twelve get an appearance by Iron Man. How lucky!" Tony finishes with a sip of his coffee. Friday transmits an almost-pouting trill of popup windows closing with the binks of resources being allocated.

"I have found an altercation in progress that demands attention." A more heavily synthesized male voice cuts in. Tony sits up.
"Alright, Bastion, what've you got?"

NOW...

Tony doesn't show up in an armored suit, on a horse, or in regal finery. He's got a dark blue vest over a grey shirt, a set of extremely nice (and unmuddied) oxfords on, and a set of large black vanity glasses on.

And it's a CRPG town. Of tiny problems. Of an ocean of meaningless spilled voice acting budget.

There's at least a half-dozen people that Tony marks as 'people who don't belong' - including a certain knight and her retained wizard companion.

"Dame Rook. Fancy seeing you here. Any idea why my aggressive jock son thought this place was worth investigating?"

His glasses warble. "The high density of-"

Tony taps the side of his glasses, the voice going silent. He smiles at Lilian, the sort of 'please excuse my idiot son' smile every father learns immediately.
Ezra Mochizuki The bodies were awful to look at, so Ezra just paid attention to the people instead and didn't look at them. What they said. What they did. The ringing of the bells. That was then.

Now, he's expecting a fistfight between an angry elf and a bunch of men who will group up on them. He glances at the elf, at first sympathetically, and then with a confused gesture at the elf just changes accents, but he needs to cut this knot, even if it causes a fight at /him/.

"Gentlemen!" Ezra says as he steps in the middle. "You just walked away from a hanging copse of corpses. You were able to be as one town then, why are a couple of insults going to force the fists to fly? What's your anger really aimed at? Each other, or something else?" Maybe get some intel out of them while he does it.

"Try and solve this civilly. Get a mediator if you need it. But don't hurt each other. You're already losing good men and women. Do you want to lose any and all relationship with your neighbors, too?"
Sumiko Sumiko crosses her arms and taps her fingers across them as she listens to the Straw-haired man.  "I mean, I'd like to see him try, but I'm not here to rock the boat.  I'm on his dime.." she says motioning towards Ben.  "Also, not getting paid to do it."

"Also, are we doing the vaguely racist shit?  I mean, is this that kind of world?  Ugh...bad enough being Japanese in the multiverse, but now this..." a beat.  Ed goes...crazy?  She lets him cut down the person and start doing whatever it is he does with bodies.  She watches with a sort of interest that one gets when watching a car crash.

Strawberry Princess also gets her attention, giving the woman a small wave.  Even Lilian gets one, trying to suppress all that old shit from when she was two people.  Tamamo is considered, given that she's with the Paladins she's not the one she knows as Caster...

So she gets a wave.  

Then Tony Motherfucking Stark walks up with talking sunglasses.  "Ok how much for a pair of shades like that?"
Tony Stark "Seven point two billion dollars." Tony replies. "There's a few other numbers, but they're what we in the business call 'small' millions."

He smirks. "For the talking part. The glasses are a few grand. Augmented reality is a bit pricey on the buy-in, but isn't worldshattering in its implications. Google had a decent offering but canned it for realism issues. And that's just a shame, isn't it?"

The 'sunglasses' become normal glasses, hints of color and light reflected in his eye that aren't visible from the 'front'.

"They're transitions too."
Tamamo     Tamamo, as mentioned, has seen Ben work before. It's with this knowledge that, on arrival, she looks up to the hanging men, then back down to Ben, and near him, the man with the pipe. She walks up to the former, and begins with, "Good day, master d'Tarkanan." Her ease with the name is notable only for how unprepared for the phonology one would be expected to be while speaking the language (two languages, technically, over any broad period of time) she is actually speaking. "Are you investigating the deceased?" She is guessing, given his skills, that this is the case.

    She has not (technically) ever seen Sumiko, before, but returns the wave with a nod, very vaguely like a bow. Edward arrives afterward, apparently safely enough, apparently without his horse, which causes a faint frown, but less for the prospect of missing her deposit and more for what that means about his trip. Strawberry Princess has not been seen in some while, and gets as much of a smile as Tamamo can allow while standing next to a collection of corpses and some combination of manic-depressives. Obvious things don't require statement. Assorted locals likewise get a smile that certainly fits 'noble,' but may seem a little too 'personally interested' in comparison to any noble they've otherwise met. Even here, even while hiding much of her true self, the goddess of the Sun is necessarily warm.

    Tony, as perhaps the last to show up, and as the one directly addressing Lilian, gets, "Oh, Mr. Stark, how kind of you to come," regardless of the particulars of his reasons. He can be kind without yet knowing why he's here, apparently, in Tamamo's opinion.

    Then Edward is doing... a thing. It's probably not wise. Rather, it would be unwise to do /only/ that. It would terribly dangerous to just leave things as they are. But it hasn't yet reached a point where she must intervene, and the intervention would not, necessarily, be difficult. With that thought through, she doesn't interfere. She only makes a mental note that someone will have to cover for him--or rather, for the inevitable repercussions of what he must do.
Ben d'Tarkanan      STRAWBERRY - 10:10 (Morning)

     "Hey," says Eder, concern evident in his eyes and his tone. He looks at Strawberry. "Look, uh... you're right. It's awful. But, Ben told me you guys would be coming to help with this." Earnestly attempting to reassure her--and having to look slightly up to do so, he continues. "Even if you can't, even if nobody else does... thanks."

     Ben glances towards her, and seems to recognize something in the way she stares at the grisly scene. "Where did you serve?" gently asks the necromancer.

     TONY 10:10 (Morning)

     Tony's aggressive jock son will likely detect two separate altercations, one being handled by Ezra which appears to be related to something said in the tavern. The other might get dicey in a minute--standing outside the mill, there is a gathering of men standing in that 'I'm bout to start some shit' kind of way, while the owner of the mill stands firm with an arquebus pointed at them.
Lilian Rook     "Either for the same, very worthy reasons Tamamo felt it necessary, or for very stupid and banal ones." Lilian replies to Tony, offhandedly and airily, which means thought about a whole lot. Specifically not saying that there's no good reason to be in a dump like this. It's not even heavily implied.

    "If you want a reason that anyone would find this a stand-out, I am to understand this place is in the area of a very ill-thought out initiative wherein an alliance successfuly cut down the god of rebirth and mercy, and since then, they've had practically nothing but stillborn --sorry, Hollowborn-- babies, creeping in like a disease. Like changeling children straight out of the womb, but even dumber and more blank-minded." That is, of course, what the extremely family-minded kitsune would be here for.

    "Or, if you prefer, there's a bunch of bandits, racial arguments, and hangings, those last courtesy of the local lord outraged at at the townspeople's lack of ability to deliver his wife's children as anything other than husks. Egomania and traumatic shock. Denial and anger, so far. Probably halfway on to bargaining, if this is how it is. The kind of thing that comes from an isolated and scared man of former means. Or, you could resolve a tavern brawl or something. I won't judge how you spend your time."

    She clears her throat 'at' Edward. This is because she doesn't want to touch him, which would be required to tap him on the shoulder. "Shouldn't you be busy with the dead baby, and thus imminent eighth execution? Don't make me carry a dead baby all the way over here." she says.

    She just kind of gives Sumiko a Look. It is obviously kind of distasteful, but reserved of any comment. It'd been her body, after all. She'd have associated the appearance with the person. She is, at least, aware of that enough to not say or do anything exceptionally untoward, settling on just sort of politely ignoring her for now rather than working anything out.

    "Oh! It's been a while!" she then speaks up, waving down Strawberry Princess in stark contrast. "I'd ask what drew you here in particular, but this seems like your sort of depressing atmosphere." She says that like it's a joke. It probably is. *Sort of* is. A 'stop being so depressed-looking, gosh' kind of thing.
Ben d'Tarkanan      EZRA - 10:17 (Morning) The elf does not look like he would walk away from a fight with these guys. Really, he doesn't look like a front line fighter at all. He's wearing light leathers, he's got a staff, and clasped to his belt is a thick book. Kind of... screams 'spindly-wristed wizard.' It probably explains why he was trying to talk them out of it, although not why he decided to insult them. Odd.

     The remark about the Hanging Tree brings some desperately needed perspective--it's unlikely much else would have gotten through to them. "He started it!" says one of the Dyrwoodans--but the others reign him in.

     "It doesn't matter, Graem. This kid's right. It's been bad enough already. No need to make it worse." It isn't a happy, peaceful dispersal, but it is a dispersal nonetheless.

     "Thank you," says the elf, politely nodding his head towards Ezra. "My name is Aloth Corfiser. I'm... just passing through," he says nervously. People who say that usually aren't. Though the crowd has dispersed, Aloth is happy to explain the general unrest. He is adamant that the Dyrwoodans merely misheard him, but as to the town itself...

     "It's largely to do with the Hollowborn Crisis," says Aloth. "Lord Raedric isn't the only one affected by it. Many of these people have had Hollowborn Children. Apparently," adds the elf with clear disdain, "He's unable to see that, or he doesn't care." Essentially, the villagers are angry, on-edge and afraid that one of them might be singled out as the latest 'reason' for the Hollowborn.
Edward Blackwell      Strawberry gets an explanation over the radio as Edward stares. He's staring off through the smoke. Watching a woman hanged. Watching her given an unfair trial. Her protests. Her shouts. Her objections. The gallows. The pull. The sudden snap.

     God dammit.

     If it wasn't for last night, he probably could've held it back. Could've held back the desire. The urge. The need. Could've held back the thrumming pain behind his eyes. Could've held back the drumbeat.

     One million.

     One hundred and thirty-seven thousand.

     Five-hundred-and-four.

     Piles of ash.

     Lilian says something. He says, his voice a little bit dull, "Just take a few seconds. Can't walk away from this. I'll rush it for you. Give you someone to talk to." This isn't the kind of place to have a country doctor. She probably *was* the country doctor. Hell, most of these people are so ignorant they probably can't even get out of bed in the morning without bumbling into a wall.

     The taser sparks. Lightning in one hand. That's how you do it. Stimulate the nerves. Spark of life. Ha, ha. Funny little joke. Cigarette's more than enough flame. Corpse already had plenty of dirt. A little spit'll do for water.

     Edward spits into the dead woman's mouth and drops one of his cigarettes. The ashes spill out of her mouth. Smoke catches in the flesh. Nimble fingers press the cigarette down into the throat. The glow of the flame against the neck. He leans down and breathes in her nose. Cigarette smoke in the soul.

     Horrible shit.

     He does such horrible shit sometimes.

     The tazer comes down between the eyes. Straight to the brain. Brain's in the head, softest place on the head is the eyes.

     Spark of life to pull the elements together. Fuse them to the body. Turn the water to vapor for the lungs, to congeal into blood for the vessels. Push the fire to the heart. Stir the earth. Let the air come together.

     That done, he flicks off the tazer, stands up, dusts himself off, and turns around. "Lead me to the kid," he says, tone blunt and rough and hollow, "I'll come back for the rest later." He lights another smoke and mutters something unkind.
Tamamo     What Lilian says is what then catches Tamamo's attention. "Oh, oh no. 'Imminent,' you say?" She looks about, from one side to the other, to spot the way toward the keep.

    "Lilian, I must at once go and see the child. Even if there is nothing I may do for them but examine the reason for their death. That is, after all, what I would most like to know." Of course it is. There are a couple of reasons why, but neither is hard to guess.

    One way or another, with the preference toward speed, she's going to where the birth has just recently taken place. (The lord's keep, one might imagine.)
Sumiko "Eh...old men aren't worth THAT much.." Sumiko says towards Stark with a smirk of her own.  "Hmm!  I'll have to look into a pair myself then.  Ugh, right?  Google is the worst at this kind of thing.  I guess I should find your world and shop around."

The conversation turns away from the darkness of the land for a moment.  Well, at least Lilian and she won't be at each other's throat, small miracles.  Ed continues his necromancy, and she still can't look entirely away.  

Finally, things come to a head with Ben and he snaps out of it.  "Is your friend the guy who runs this place?"
Strawberry Princess      Strawberry's walking towards the tavern already when she's intercepted. Her shoulders somehow manage to slump further as Eder tries to reassure her. She smiles helplessly, chagrined by the fact that she seemed to need a pick-me-up from someone already so set-upon.

     "No, it isn't... I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry. It's..." She trails off, switching gears. Her spine straightens out; her shoulders square. There's no glitter or costume, but it's a stark transformation into 'Justice Hero' nonetheless. "It is a terrible thing. I don't know how much we can help. But it's what we're here for, sir. Please don't feel sorry to others for... for things being bad. The badness is enough to bear."

     Ben d'Tarkanan gently accosts her too. The question ought to make her grimace, but she's already in full 'Princess' mode. "Almost everywhere," she tells him. "I was a magical child." A brief pause from the former child soldier, then- "Where were you?"

     Lilian and Tamamo make a little of the color return to her face; she waves at them off to the side. Rook's joke doesn't comfort her as much as the fact that they're simply there- an anchor of familiarity; something to tie her to the present like an astronaut's umbilical. "It's so nice to see you again, Lilian. I just- wanted something quiet to ease back into things, I guess. I'm not sure if this is the kind of quiet I wanted. How about you?"
Ben d'Tarkanan      TAMAMO - 10:17 (Morning)

     "Ah... Goodlady Tamamo." He shakes his head. "No... I'm merely..." His expression hardens. If you don't put on a brave face, they'll think you're a coward. "I'm shocked at this display," he admits sternly. "This is neither the Gilded Vale, nor the Raedric that I knew. My fears were sadly correct." He sighs mirthlessly. "More than I realized at the time."

     "Eder tells me that all of the followers of Eothas save himself have been driven out or..." There isn't much room for guessing there, with the Hanging Tree right behind him.

     EDWARD - 10:17 (Morning)

     Eder is about to respond to Ben when Edward's taser comes out. "Hey, maybe you shouldn't--"

     His mild-mannered protest is cut short when the dwarf gasps to life, coughing on the cigarette ash. A dour looking man, apparently a magistrate of some sort, watching from just a few feet off, narrows his eyes and turns to leave town.

     "Merla, but your bedside manner could use some work." The flush of life returns to her. She has wiry black hair, warm brown skin and brown eyes that tear up slightly from the coughing. She adjusts the lenses of those fancy glasses--flipping very green magnifiers over them and turning a few knobs. "Interesting..." Her accent sounds distinctly Italian. "If by that you mean the young Raedric," she says, "Well, perhaps..."

     Eder points towards the sea of trees to the north. "Raedric's Hold," he says. "If you're going... you mind if I come with you?"
Tony Stark Tony seems slightly bashful at the praise from Tamamo. "Nothing kind about it. Had to get out of the compound or I'd go crazy."

He chuckles, despite the subject. "More crazy, I guess."

Lilian gives Tony a fairly valid answer - that they're here because Magic Stuff and/or The Children, and Tony nods along.

His glasses beep INCESSANTLY at him, so with a glance, Stark slides his hands into his pants pockets and heads towards the Mill Event In Progress.

"Gentlemen! What seems to be the problem?" Obvious Outsider Heroman #84 (Goatee Richmen Ver. Ka) asks the gentlemen.

His glasses fill in the rest with an inquiry of its own:

"Cease your bickering and instead answer this inquiry: Explain the parameters with which this place attacked and dethroned a deity."

Tony's face goes white. "I'm taking away your twitter access when we get back home, Bastion.

"Such efforts would be futile. I have already seen everything."

Tony lacks the ability to press the space bar, enter CRPG tactical time, and get a stronger beverage for this shit.
Ezra Mochizuki As the men step away and pull the guy back, Ezra doesn't respond. He waits for them to leave, and then talks to Aloth. "Ezra Mochizuki. No, you're not, but I won't pry - unless you need help. I know what it's like to be an outsider." Is all Ezra says to that, before listening. He tilts his head towards the nonsense at the tree, if it's in range, but mostly he's focusing entirely on Aloth.

"Thanks for the information. You've got an outsider's eyes. I know the basics, but what can fix this? How can I help around here? Sure, they're jingoist assholes, but if it's this bad, someone's gotta do something big. Even if it's..." A look towards the keep. "Something dangerous." He's not actually implying some sort of murder or something - that's distinctively not what he does.

"You some sort of wizard?"
Lilian Rook     There it is. The thing that Lilian, deep down in her heart, expected. She'd said the words. She'd hoped to just send off Edward to the case, to probably get shot first as the 'expendable' meat shield, and solve the problem as a form of efficient delegation, but nope. She'd let Tamamo hear it. The world shivers with the tremendous weight of her suppressing a sigh.

    "Mmmmmmm . . . Fine." Lilian really drags out the syllabic noise. "I'll come with you, obviously. I refuse to let a petty landlord give the avatar of a goddess any kind of grief." She looks to Strawberry, and says "Oh. You know." The meaning of this is so screamingly clear that even the ex-ex-magical girl would get it immediately.

    Just before leaving, she does, finally, take a little interest in what Edward is up to. She of course does not possess nearly the (correct kind of) inarticulable madness as he does, but she is just obviously classically trained in a hell of a lot of western occultism; enough to recognize dirt and water and cigarette flame and lightning. With some casual engagement, she remarks "Oh? Is that four element symbolism I see? Sympathetic emulation of the philosopher's stone concept? Or I suppose more similar to a chemic doctor. That's interesting."

    "Have fair warning though; nobody here wishes to believe any of this is any sort of inevitable consequence of disastrous, probably irreperable damage to the divine warp and weave. They'll cling to it being a disease or curse or something similar as long as they possibly can."

    The keep does, pressingly, have to take precedence though, as much as Lilian would prefer to socialize. She must accompany Tamamo on the way there. She just kinda vaguely hand motions at Eder in a way that could be read as 'sure but don't say anything stupid or come within three feet of me.'
Edward Blackwell      "My bedside manner is fucking atrocious," Edward agrees with the dwarf. He starts walking alongside Lilian and Tamamo. Lilian asks him if it's four elements symbolism and emulation of a philosopher's stone. Edward considers how to reply to that, because he doesn't actually know what the fuck any of that is.

     "Sure, that was my working theory," he says finally, "Body wasn't that bad. Didn't need to do anything with the flesh. Just needed to wake it up. Figured it was the fastest way without pulling shit out of my backpack. Since we're in a hurry and all." He's talking quietly enough that the (no-longer) dead dwarf can't hear. Very explicitly so.

     She says they won't believe it. His hand goes into his pocket. "No shit they won't believe it. I'd be fucking shocked if these people believed that night-time wasn't the work of evil ghost spirits who steal the sun for a few hours."

     There's a pause. He tilts back around Lilian to look at Tamamo.

     "It's not, right?"

     There's another brief pause as he falls back into step. "Anyway. Yeah. Well. Whatever. Not my problem what they want to believe, is it?"
Lilian Rook     "No, it's because Amaterasu-omikami and Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto got into a fight after the former sent the latter to represent her at a formal function and instead she killed the host."

    Lilian says that dead dry. She had, in fact, done some amount of research at some point. Apparently just to be semi-sarcastic about it right now. "I'm not talking about superstition. I'm talking about denial. The former burns women for being witches, the latter burns countries over absurd cascade failures of communication."
Ben d'Tarkanan      SUMIKO (10:17)

     "He is," says Ben. "Lord Raedric VII. His keep is there," says the necromancer, pointing to the top of the fortress peeking over the forest of seemingly dead trees north and due east. "Raedric's Hold, it's called. I believe we ought to make that our next stop. Perhaps Raedric might still be willing to hear reason..." He sounds as if he's trying to convince himself of that, but nonetheless sits astride his horse and follows behind...

     LILIAN, TAMAMO, EDWARD, EDER

     Travel to the baby involves heading through the Esternwood. It is north, and, as the name would imply, East, of Gilded Vale. Much like the Vale, the Esternwood is a place of hard earth and dead trees. Regrettably, it is also a place of (un)dead people. Before Ben arrives, it is largely a matter of cutting a swath through them. Individually they are easy, if somewhat annoying to handle, but there is very rarely /just/ one.

     When Ben joins, he assists by turning them against each other. You have a sort of gruesome honor guard--if Edward can stand such a thing. One thing Ben can't control are the pwgra. They are feral, dirty beings that resemble human teenagers, but with sharp claws, sharper teeth, and unnatural strength.

     According to Eder, when the Legacy first began, animancers (scientists of the soul, as the dwarf you met) attempted to solve it by placing animal souls in children. At first, it seemed to work--but when they began to come of age, they went mad, unfailingly, many killing their parents. Opinions on animancy are polarizing, here most of all. It is a new science, and the pwgra are one of several grisly stumbles.
Sumiko Sumiko looks at Ben for a moment, it was odd to see him this...crestfallen?  Depressed?  She does suppose this man was his friend, and what was going on here was incredibly awful.  When he starts moving, she follows pulling the hood up again.  She walks forward, it's easy for her to push forward.  It reminds her of home.

She hates it.

As she's following Ben, she'll arrive with him to help with the undead.  Shards of glass-like crystal fly out from her, as she takes a special looking blade out of thin air to fight both hand to hand, and using her shards to fire at a distance.  

The Teenagers shake her for a moment until she sees they're acting like beasts.  Lowering her head for a moment, she mutters something.  Then starts going to town, the carefree attitude she had seemingly evaporating at what they're being exposed to.  
Edward Blackwell      Edward gives Lilian a very long look. Then, "OK."

     He shrugs. "Yeah, well. I..."

     He's about to say that he can't treat denial until he remembers that there's a very good chance he can. The look on his face is one of great discomfort, not at her, but at himself. He lowers his head, his hair falling over his face. "Yeah," he agrees, his voice a bit more uneven.

     He is purposefully not looking at the undead. Edward is not a fighter. Edward *can* fight, of course, but he doesn't want to, here. He's afraid. He's much too afraid. He's afraid that if he starts, he won't be able to stop, and he'll spend much too much time trying to fix them, and then he'll just spiral out again. What happened last night? He still can't remember all of it. But he knows he's weak right now. That his restraint is low. That his mind is still reeling. The madness knocking at the back door of his mind. He can't afford to snap.

     Well.

     Not now.

     So Ben's power gets no objection. No argument. No heroic cry of 'stop', no shout of discontent, no hand on his shoulder. Edward just lowers his head, hunching forward, smoking furiously. He can't look. He can still feel the heartbeat in his brain.

     Help-help.
     Help-help.
     Help-help.
     Help-help.

     The drumbeats of last night's madness. Scraps of thoughts flickering in his eyes. Help-help. Help-help. Someone dug out of the rubble and patched up and tossed aside like a doll. Help-help. A man pulled off a fallen spike and sewn up in three clean strokes. Help-help. Flashes, but nothing more. Nothing concrete. Trying to protect his mind from his mind.

     He barely even defends himself. There are no counterattacks. No punches. No kicks. No blades. All Edward does is dodge and weave and duck and avoid. He's letting Lilian or Tamamo or Eder or Ben('s undead) handle the problem; the ones who get close to him he just keeps busy with cigarette smoke and raw speed. He's much faster than he looks.
Ben d'Tarkanan      >Where were you?

     "The Last War," replies Ben. She can hear the capital letters. He continues, naming a few of his deployments. "Thrane, Breland, Karrnath..." With a grave pause, "Cyre."

     TONY - Mill

     "This son of a bitch is hoarding grain, that's what." Oh, boy. It's one of /those/ arguments.

     "I am not!" cries the man with the arquebus. "Whatever I don't sell to the tavern--" That's basically the gist; things are very scarce here. The mill owner has to feed his kids, the rabble rousers likewise, and it's pretty much going to result in someone being pissed off no matter how it gets settled--barring intervention from Multiversals, anyway. But when Bastion interrupts, it's confusing enough to puzzle the fight out of them, for a moment.

     "Where'd that voice come from?"

     One of the rabble-rousers, a dwarf with a bald head and a red beard, is feeling feisty enough to shift the argument to the disembodied voice. "Wasn't us that attacked!" He says it in the same way one might say 'not my fault!' "Was years ago besides. Eothas found some Readceran farmer named Waidwen, and he marched his glowing ass down here, and killed anybody didn't bow down to him."

     "The Dyrwood was just defending itself," says the leader of the group. "When Eothas made it to Halgot, they lured him onto a bridge and them Magran priests blew him up but good with the biggest damn bomb you ever saw. Pretty much the end of the Saints' War."

     "Didn't Eder serve in that?"

     "Yeah, but I'm surprised he didn't fight for Readceras. Don't see how he has the nerve to keep wearing that damn cape with everything Eothas put us through. Even dead that son of a bitch is a problem."

     EZRA

     "I am, yes," says Aloth with a slight hint of pride. He clears his throat and ponder's Ezra's more pressing concern. "It's clear that the leadership of this place is sorely lacking," notes Aloth after a thoughtful pause. "If we could convince Raedric to see reason, Gilded Vale might see a short-term improvement." His brow knits together with concern. "However... Waidwen's Legacy will be a problem no matter where in the Dyrwood one goes. If there's a solution to be found, it would do the Dyrwood a world of good, especially in small communities like this one."
Tamamo     Tamamo hurries on, now with a party, and leaving behind the others. Tony has found other work to do, at least. Strawberry will just have to forgive her for the rush.

    Between herself and Ben, combining warding and True Sun magic with necromancy, they're better than well-equipped for handling most varieties of undead. Tamamo contributes primarily by warding, setting up a barrier that moves with her person, forcing 'evil spirits,' fairly broadly defined, to back away from her as they pass, out to a far enough distance not to bother too badly, with only the luckier (or most misfortunate, considering) or particularly strong specimens likely to resist the compulsion. This has no effect on animals, as such, and is thus similarly ineffective against the pwgra.

    "Something is terribly wrong with these... people...?" The observation comes out as a question, as she tries, and fails, to find that spark of reason in their eyes. "These human-shaped creatures, yet with... something missing."

    She only does anything to these feral not-humans if absolutely pressed--or if another is, as the apparently defenseless Edward--though in that moment, her technique is fairly effective. There's a mirror, there where she needs it, an artifact of exceptional power that moves at her thought, and together with the lightest of motion from her arms. The mirror is also exceptionally sturdy, and works just as well as a shield or a club.

    But really, she just wants through.
Lilian Rook     "Why are there zombies here."

    That is Lilian's first question. It is barely even a question. Except it is, because this seems like a bizarre place for it. "I don't mean 'in this world'. I'd expect there to be if there are necromancers. I mean here. Between town and the keep. How does anyone travel back and forth? Where are they coming from? How long have they been here? Do they eat people regularly?"

    Lilian doesn't just gun these down. That's her usual modus operandi for things she deems 'not worth expending magical energy on', even though she rarely ever says it. She has a perfectly good length of steel in hand.

    It is *extremely* rare that anyone ever sees her using Her Sword, for matters that are largely not spoken of, but in a place where it's perfectly acceptable to use one, and likely a bad idea to use something so obviously exotic and malicious, she'd finally bit the bullet and paid out for high quality damascus that she liked the balance, length, and weight of (trending towards ostensibly a little too long and surprisingly heavy).

    In this case though, just between Edward, Eder, and then Ben (Tamamo is no stranger to it), she takes the trail with the blade resting flat on her shoulder, palm on the pommel and red wrapping. When the undead show up, she brings it down with only faint pressure, spins it once or twice about her hand to grip it properly, and then takes a single precisely placed advancing step for each instance of zombie, not gripping the weapon in both hands and cleaving through, but holding firm right beneath the guard with palm pressed loosely against the pommel, levering the long hilt with quick, easy, almost weightless cuts in line with each step.

    A flicking cut upwards at the underarm, separating the left ribs to the right shoulder like a slice of meat. A neatly once-rounded chop horizontally through the neck, carrying the severed head atop the flat and flinging it easily into the woods. A diving arc down at the jugular, through the torso, and back out as if the blade had 'bounced', bisecting another, and another, in short, easy, even dance-like steps. The point turns down -- step -- hack hack two legs off. The point rotates up -- step -- thrust flick and the spine separates. The point tilts and turns back -- step -- snicker snack off comes the head. Anything that filters through to within thirty feet is lopped to pieces. At a certain point, she asks Ben if using that magic costs him anything, and then if he says yes, she politely suggests that he save his energy.

    The immense triviality of it is almost shocking. Dispatching with CR 5 undead mobs is almost automatic. Like breathing. She claims shooting things is the most braindead way of getting rid of trivial obstructions, but the way she walks up the trail, ahead of the rest, is almost *zen*. Exactly like she's experiencing the usual wandering thoughts of a long walk. The 'Dame Commander' title is, apparently, not inherited. Not for show. Being stuck in a situation with a steel sword and plenty of random encounters in the way, menacing her fine clothes, Lilian simply drops the pretense and unveils little bits and pieces of a western fighting tradition long, long lost to the last remaining scraps of a handful of yellowed manual pages in English museums. To someone with any fighting background, it'd seem like a genuine shame that she never uses it.

    It's the most interesting thing she has to say or do the whole way there. Maybe besides her first response to the pwgra, which is, quite a lot less casually, "Are these people who live here?" which seems to make no difference when Eder explains they're just deranged animals wearing human skin. They get the same treatment as the undead, save that Lilian flicks the blood free each time.

    "Are we there yet?"

    It's very, very hard to tell if she's being serious or if that's intentionally meant to be invoking the image of an aggressively bored and uncomfortable child.
Ben d'Tarkanan      SUMIKO, EDWARD, TAMAMO, LILIAN, EDER, BEN

     Tamamo's warding magic proves quite useful, both in repelling the tangible undead, and the shades and spectres which eventually find the party. Her magic creates a zone they cannot pass, and the journey from that point becomes safer, if uncomfortable--the feeling of being watched never goes away.

     Eder, Sumiko, Ben and his undead make quick work of what's trapped within that barrier. Despite his talent for magic, Ben is right at the front lines with Lilian, Eder and Sumiko. In particular, the two men fight as trained soldiers would, eventually growing accustomed to the fighting style of the other. Eder bears a shield and longsword, Ben a bastard sword. With his undead dogpiling whatever they're fighting, Sumiko and Eder can make quick work of them--and the pwgra, when necessary.

     "I have never before seen the Esternwood so..."

     "Full of vessels?" Eder asks in his drawl.

     Ben nods.

     "Don't rightly know why," says the fighter.

     The pale master replies. "Unless someone raised them, such things usually happen as a result of unresolved worldly affairs or violent deaths." There... have probably been a fair share of those in the Vale as of late.

     Lilian's question seems to prompt a response from the farmer with the scale-mail. He smiles at 'are we there yet,' the universal joke that never gets old. "This is where we used to bury our dead," Eder says. On your left and right, as you follow the road, you can see plots for paupers, mausoleums for the more well-to-do. "You think... somethin' might have riled 'em up?"

     Ben nods. "Perhaps something in that keep."

     Raedric's Hold stands before you--but there is a problem. The undead who were following you retreat back into the Esternwood. Ben slays his entourage with a gesture of his hand. Lilian can feel that it does cost some resource, but he has refined the art to the point that stealing command of such commonplace undead is but a pittance. As you approach, you see why he slew them.

     Raedric's Hold looks as if it's preparing to fight an invasion. This is not the keep of a kind lord, it's the fortress of a paranoid, fearful man. Guards are posted at the bridge, and bid you to stop there.

     "Lord d'Tarkanan and... guests," says one of them. His eyes narrow at Eder with the utterance of 'guests.' "Lord Raedric isn't seeing visitors. You'll have to turn around and go back the way you came."
Tony Stark IT'S ONE OF THOSE CHALLENGES.

Tony Stark rubs his face. "This really isn't worth getting worked up over. Of course he's hoarding grain. He's a grain farmer. It's why he has grain storage, because he wants to eat."

Tony ignores the question of his glasses. "And now you've come near his house, with a large weapon-" the arquebus. "To... What? Ask questions? You're neighbors. Maybe you don't like each other every day, but you are each other's support network. Say you fight each other now. Does that get you grain tomorrow? Does that feed your kids a month from now? Come on. When times are lean, grow together, not apart."

Tony shakes his head. Freaking arguments over scraps of bread. "If you both worked together to hunt a deer or something, you'd have meat for both families. You've already got the weapons to do so. Do something constructive. Also, as you can see--"

Tony gestures to his clothes. "I'm a very powerful wizard. That's my familiar, who is interested in matters of divinity."
Ezra Mochizuki Ezra thinks, and then nods. "Well, alright. You want to come with me? I'd go to the keep, but an entire posse just headed there and I don't know any of them, so I'm not gonna step on their toes. Instead, there's an apothecary over in..." He wracks his brain. "Anslog's Compass. A woman here needs their help to avoid their child being born Hollowborn. I can move fast, if you can keep up."

And if Aloth does choose to come with him, Ezra doesn't move so fast that Aloth can't keep up. He doesn't even put on his suit. But it's going to be a light workout - probably for the mage, not for Ezra, who has a ton of stamina.

CRPG fast travel, go!
Ben d'Tarkanan      TONY - Mill

     The leader is silent, clearly thinking about what Tony said. Evidently the mouthy one of the group, one of his buddies--the dwarf with the fiery red beard--speaks up.

     "Y'know, we *could* take to the woods, up Cilant Lis way."

     "And get our asses shot off by the Glanfathans?"

     "I said -up that way,- not 'right in the ruins.' If we stuck together, we could keep from getting grabbed by xaurips."

     Tony's given them something to think about, at least. It's the beginnings of a plan. The rabble-rousers leave to discuss it further. In the tavern, naturally. That leaves Stark alone with the owner of the mill, who breathes a sigh of relief.

     "Thanks for that. If there's something you need..." He doesn't have much. That's clear. But he can probably tell Tony anything he wants to know--and anything Bastion wants to know. "Or your 'familiar,'" he adds.
Tamamo     "Oh, shall I handle the matter of the guard? I would like to avoid both injury and wasted time, though I may be unable to spare their feelings." Tamamo asks and, receiving several answers, finishes with "Very well." She steps forward.

    "I am Tamamo no Mae, bunrei of Amaterasu-omikami, Goddess of the Sun." This is a claim that does, on occasion, garner significant amounts of disbelief, either for the part where she claims self-identity with the head of a pantheon, or the part where someone has no idea who Amaterasu is but 'knows' that a goddess of something as important as the day-star 'couldn't be right here, right now.' That's why she accompanies the claim with a partial shedding of the (purely figurative) cloak. Something of the mortal guise falls away, and she shines with a bright light, only faded to mere 'fire' around the edges.

    'Light' is not that impressive on its own, if someone lacks the necessary senses to differentiate the mundane from the wondrous. Tamamo's is accompanied by a charming curse, striking the viewer's mind, holding their attention, driving in the awe that the divine demands if their minds won't produce it on their own. Awe, respect, trust, faith in her good will. The exact effect need not be subtle, but here she takes the time to let it be, rising almost as naturally as honest reactions would come about in a listener's mind, while she speaks. Enough that the memory of it won't feel /too/ strange when the effect leaves them.

    She continues, "I call on the Lord Raedric to permit myself, and companions, to see the child. I will not press upon him for any further hospitality. I wish only to find the meaning of what has gone wrong with the children of this land. Please forgive our uninvited entry, and do not stand against our aid, but permit us entry." It's earnest, heartfelt, and honest, despite the component of divine magic being what makes it heartwrenching to even consider denying her.
Edward Blackwell      Edward doesn't really participate in the banter or the conversation on the way through, either. He's uncharacteristically quiet, little more than a walking chimney. He does nod in Tamamo's direction as thanks, but that's about it.

     When they get through the dead there is a sigh of relief. Edward's eyes turn upwards onto the keep. It's a big, dark castle. Reminds him of the skyline last night. Big, and dark, and empty. Soulless. The castle has the feeling of the land. Soulless.

     A shaky drag. The man tells them to turn back the way they came. Tamamo does her thing.

     Edward, surprisingly, does not help. No wave of his hand, no echoing words of power. He just stands back, smokes, and watches.
Sumiko Sumiko sighs, despite everything she only gets into banter to put this episode behind her.  Undead monsters are one thing, things that used to be human...or look human enough though contain monsters spook her more than she likes to admit.  Though at least something good came out of the banter.  

Tamamo goes full in with her divine nature.  The green eyes watch her carefully, not because she's distrustful, but because she's curious about what is going on.  However, she does look at the guards.  She pulls her hood down and smiles.

"We did just face all of those abominations to help your lord.  Please don't send us away," She says pleadingly.  "Lord d'Tarkanan's very concerned about his friend."
Ben d'Tarkanan      EZRA and ALOTH

     "Yes!" The wizard's response is tellingly eager. He wants to be anywhere but here, for whatever reason. By the time he and Ezra make it to the Compass, Aloth is out of breath, leaning on his staff for support.

     "Do you... run everywhere you go?"

     Anslog's Compass is... nicer than Gilded Vale, but still kind of dreary. It's a beach, but the air is cool and the water murky and brackish. The trees give way to rocky outcroppings. You can see where someone once made camp here, though they've since left. The campfire smolders slowly.

     A large outcropping with a natural cave dominates the center of the beach. The sand forks southwest and southeast around it--the southwest path leads to another, different, seemingly more permanent camp. More of a lean-to, you might say. It appears as if someone is there.

     The southeast path leads to a structure formed of animal bones and hides. Reptilian creatures there gather, watching you warily.

     If asked, Aloth identifies them as 'xaurips,' intelligent creatures unable to speak as other sapient races do, due to their physiology. "I expect the apothecary would be there," says the wizard, pointing to the lean-to on the southwest shore. "Although... I should caution you. There have been a lot of quack cures for Hollowborn peddled in recent years. You... might be wasting your money," he admits gently.
Ezra Mochizuki Ezra passes Aloth another water bottle from his bag, as he replies cheerfully. "I try to be fast. Can't waste time. There's so much I could be doing that stopping to smell the roses is just useless."

The dark-haired man asks Aloth about the lizards, 'xaurips', and he glances towards them as he does, before shrugging and heading to wards the lean-to. "I should be able to tell. The best question is if they know anything, and at the least, I can tell the woman that it was a bust. It's better than the child being born and her bitterly believing there could have been a chance, if only she took this one cure, y'know?"

And then, Ezra, not running so that Aloth can catch his breath, calmly walks up to the lean-on and moves to look for the apothecary, and, obviously, ask them about Hollowborn.
Ben d'Tarkanan      TAMAMO, SUMIKO, EDWARD, BEN, EDER

     Goddess? Ben frowns as Tamamo introduces herself. He must remember to apologize for his improper form of address later. Her address seems to confuse the guards, as there is apparently no Eoran sun-deity. Not directly. The closest thing would, unfortunately, be Eothas, if Eder's cape is any indication. It bears a kind of starburst pattern resembling a sun. The guards seem to realize after a moment of mulling it over. Initially, it doesn't do her much good--until the magic takes hold.

     "I... I'm sorry," says one of the guards, with tears welling up in his eyes. "I can't..."

     "But," says the other guard, seeking to spare both Tamamo's feelings and those of his companion, "There is a way..." This guard, ever so slightly, motions with a nod of his head to the moat. Quietly, he offers you all a piece of crucial advice. "If you head in through the drainage pipe, you can come up into the throne room from the dungeons. You won't run into any of us but his personal guard, if you go that way."

     The pipe in question is large enough for a person, though you'd have to enter single file. You could also scale the keep itself, but even from down here, you can see that there are many guards patrolling the roof, making that route the 'fight everything' route to be sure. By the looks of it, the pipe is the stinky route. Eder or Ben can easily just tear the grates off, if that's the route you choose to take.

     "The priests of Berath might help, too," says one of the guard, wiping his tears. "But they're closer to the top of the keep. You'd have to climb up. We'd... look the other way for you, since Lord d'Tarkanan is just trying to check on his friend," he says, nodding at Sumiko. "But I can't say the others there would do the same."
Edward Blackwell      Alright. That didn't work.

     Edward grabs the guard by the scruff of the neck. There is a palpable madness in his eyes. "Did you watch?"

     His words are acid in the brain. They're poison to the ears. "Did you watch while he hanged her?"

     "Did you stand there and let a woman die for something she couldn't control?"

     "Will you stand here and let more die while you mutter something meekly about just following orders?"

     "How dare you call yourselves human beings."

     Edward releases the guard and puts his thumb against his chest. "Now let me the fuck through. Since the rest of you are too fucking cowardly to stop him, I'm going to fix the goddamn problem, give him a child like he wants, and then nobody else has to die, you useless bunch of asshats."

     "Now get the fuck out of my way."
Tony Stark Tony slides his glasses of his face, letting the goons leave towards the tavern. "You're welcome." he replies to the thanks, waving his hand. "I got the gist of it. Some powerful sort showed up, messed with the local whatsits, things progressed as they do at swordpoint, and now there's problems."

Tony, for all his finery, seems content to lean on a fence and half-cross his arms at the elbows, looking out over the fields, and towards the mill. "I'm not the one with kids to feed." Tony sighs, a weariness setting into his shoulders. "People around here have it hard, then? Because of some hero rolling up and mucking about?"

Tony's eyes pan towards the forest, down the hills and past the mill. Something clicks in his head. "Actually, I do know what you can do for me. I'm parched. Got a finger or so of anything drinkable? That'd be payment enough. We can talk, or I can get along. Whichever's better to let you keep figuring it out around here."
Ben d'Tarkanan      EZRA and ALOTH

     Aloth thoughtfully considers Ezra's response. "I suppose I admire that," he says. "It's... dutiful, in a way."

     Until now, Ezra has mostly seen elves, dwarves, humans, and what might somewhere else be called 'halflings,' but here are known as 'orlans.' The apothecary is quite different than the Eorans he's so far met--she is an aumaua. She towers over Ezra and Aloth alike. Her skin is the warm gold-brown of a dying sunset, with pale, fish-white patches at throat and hands. Wavy red-brown hair, pulled into tight braids around a stripe of bare skin that follows the curve of her skull, flows down over her broad shoulders.

     Besides her, there is a xaurip, who seems much friendlier than the others, though it has been injured, probably by the other xaurips if the wound is any indication. The apothecary is busying herself with some sort of salve for her xaurip friend.

     "Hello there," she says. "Have you come to trade?"
Ezra Mochizuki Ezra blinks only once at the aumaua, before his brain rapidly acknowledges and accepts what he's looking at. He is able to hold on 'wow, a fish person', because he is not tactless.

"Yes, I have. You are an apothecary, correct? Might you have any treatment for Waidwen's Legacy?" He uses the word because it's nicer than Hollowborn. "I'm aware that I'm asking for quite a bit, but I heard you would be the most likely to have a salve. If you could tell me about it, I have coin, or cargo."

He wants her to tell him about it so he can read her body and language and deduce if she's selling a scam.

After a minute, though, his brain jumps to something else. "What happened to them?" A foot gestures towards the xaurip.
Ben d'Tarkanan      TONY - Mill

     "More than just that," says the miller. "It's only a few of us that even have children, these days. See... Godhammer was years ago, but it's the Legacy that's the real problem. Ever since they blew Eothas up, kids are just born..." The miller frowns. "Empty. They breathe. They eat, if ya force 'em to. But there's nothing up here." He taps the side of his head. So, essentially, ever since the god of rebirth invaded the Dyrwood on some kind of holy crusade--or rather, ever since he was killed at the /end/ of said crusade, children have been born essentially catatonic.

     As such, very few people here, or anywhere in this country, have many children, if any.

     The miller nods towards the tavern. "You... look like you wanna help. So, if y'want, we could grab some drinks and discuss it at the tavern."
Sumiko Sumiko shrugged her shoulders, at this point they could split up, or just try one route or the other, but right now Ed seems to be pushing hard.  Sumiko can relate to the stress building up, and there seems to be something more there, but she's not sure...and it's not like they're particularly close.  

However, she walks next to him putting a hand on his shoulder.  "You heard him.  If you're afraid for your life, if we get in isn't it already forfeit.  Assume that we succeed, then he might decide to execute you for holding us up.  If we get in and fail, he will for not doing your job..."

"Really, it's a bad position...but if we can get in there, and solve everything and you cooperate with us..." she says, thinking, "I can make sure you and your families get somewhere safe," She says, trying to leverage this as best as she can.  She's not a professional wordsmith, she's just working with what she has.  

"So, I guess what happens next is all up to you.  What are your names?"
Lilian Rook     "I like this one." Lilian opines on Eder along the way, as he receives her backhanded and dry banter in good humour. Someone without an ego or overt madness here is surprisingly nice.
    When it comes to the end, however, Lilian regards the gate guard with evident, tiresome displeasure. He is *respectful* towards Tamamo, but uncooperative. Uncooperative to all of them, albeit she only really cares about three including herself. Edward can go and cook his brains if he likes, and it'll lend the others a considerable degree of aid if he succeeds, but Lilian cannot possibly be bothered to haggle and persuade all the troops along the way. "The lord of the house is obviously of no mind to allow even his good friend through. He is, quite definitely, in no right mind at all. He won't have his soldiers stand down until we speak to him, and we can't speak to him until his soldiers stand down." she muses, with some amount of distant vitriol, having her mind already well-made up.

    "Well, I'm certain you'll find a way to figure it out. As for myself though, I'm not crawling up a drainage pipe, and neither is Tamamo. I'll be seeing you in a bit, I'm sure." She grasps Tamamo by the hand. bip.

                -----[stop]-----
    "Drainage pipe. Are you fucking kidding me? Where does a nasty little spear-gripping extra get off telling me to crawl up a pipe. I hope Blackwell scrambles his brain good." Lilian seethes to herself, though she isn't able to stay angry for long about it, just due to how inconsequential the slight is.

    Instead, she just picks up Tamamo where she won't, and cannot, be bothered or fussy about it, hopping over the barricade, and walking down the hall of wax models -- the museum of history, wherein lifelike dummies of medieval soldiers are artfully arranged amongst scenery deemed to be period accurate. The practical effects are stunning. The walkway perfectly, reverently quiet. Nobody to talk, nobody to crowd around, nobody to ask to see tickets. A short, pensive walk over old flagstones, through an exquisite diorama piece in full scale. She can't even see the strings.

    She could batter down the gates, but that'd tip way too much of a hand, instead she puts Tamamo down (well, lets her float), dissolves the substance of her being into a flash of ghastly black static, and walks through to the other side, operating the locks and cranks herself, opening the doors, pulling Tamamo through, and then closing and re-locking them herself. She repeats this process for the inner front doors, and then for each succession of chambers that are locked, until she can simply manipulate the door handles, carefully returning them to their original angles with little flickers of retrocausal action.

    Past the tiny, spherical dots of light that alight atop like candle wicks and braziers like resting butterflies. Past dim sunbeams through old windows where she doesn't cast a shadow. Gliding before the open eyes of men with better things to do. All the way to where she senses the throne room is. Where she *knows* the throne room is. Next to the thing that she *knows* is adjacent to it, that she doesn't dare show Tamamo. The throne room is best o deposit Tamamo standing up again, unchanged from her original posture..

                -----[start]-----

    bip. Lilian holds up her finger in an instant. "Don't talk. Listen first. I am Dame Commander Lilian Isabelle Rook of the Order of the Scarlet Cross Unseen. I already know who you are. Your good friend is waiting at the door and your 'men' are making this infinitely more difficult than it has to be; blame your own orders for this particularly impolite entry, because I'm not going to apologize. Not that I don't recognize your station, but because apologizing implies what I have to say is less important than your feelings, which I barely care about."
Lilian Rook     She begins listing off on each finger in rapid succession. "Your children keep coming out hollow, and there's someone here to fix that. You're obviously going stir crazy looked up in your private mansion, and there's someone here to fix that. The road in and out is a festering hive of man-eating monsters, and there's someone here to fix that. You're executing villagers for abhorrent reasons, and, your wife is dead, and frankly though you don't deserve it, there's someone here to fix that."

    "Either you can drop the borderline personality dementia theatre and let us all do the work for you, because your good friend d'Tarkanan, who you also do not deserve, asked slash hired people to, or I can fix this whole situation where you're in charge. Don't bother answering because I'm assuming you've chosen the former."
Tony Stark Tony's smile remains on his tired face. "Tavern, huh? Well, those thugs are probably..." He checks his watch. "Getting ready to brave the wilderness. I'll make sure they find something worth eating, that'll keep them happy. Positive reinforcemet and all. Bastion?"

His glasses, from a button-loop on his vest, chime. "Asset tasked."

"And that's that." Tony pops up from his lean. "Lead the way to the place where the amber liquid flows, and we'll talk." He decides, waiting for the farmer to finish up whatever it is he needs to do at the mill.

"Are any children spared? Any born 'normal'? I have to believe it is, because otherwise your whole situation is a death spiral with extra steps."
Ben d'Tarkanan      EDWARD, SUMIKO, LILIAN, TAMAMO, BEN, EDER - Raedric's Hold

     Edward humiliates the guards. Ben doesn't stop him. Not out of some similar outrage. Just because he knows that there are things /he/ allowed to happen, too. He's no better than those guards. Besides... defending them would just make him look bad.

     However, Sumiko does present an easy target. "Goodlady Sumiko," says Ben, "There is no need to make threats upon these men. I am sure that Eddie and Dame Rook have made our case abundantly clear. Here," says Ben, offering them each a sizeable handful of coin. "Your wages for today. If you fear reprisal from Lord Raedric, I will see to it that you and your families are safely relocated, and personally ensure your gainful employment."

     "Now I'm thinking maybe /I/ oughta hold you up," says Eder as Ben and Sumiko send the guards on their way.

     "Eddie will have the whole keep after us if we can't get to Raedric to call them off," says Ben. "I shall get us in through that pipe. I've no desire to wade through scores of Raedric's soldiers just for a word."

     Edward is able to make it past them, but that's the easy part. As he strides towards the open portcullis that leads into the keep, cries of alarm begin to sound through the courtyard. As he ignores the warnings and commands of the guards, arrows begin to fly from above. Armored soldiers wielding swords, greatswords, pikes, axes and spears rush out to greet him.

     Essentially, if he continues straight forward, he'll be storming a keep. Ben and Eder don't go with him.

     Instead, they pry the grate off of the drainage pipe and enter the keep from below, while Edward's bold approach has the guards distracted.

     Lilian, meanwhile, cuts straight to Raedric, evidently of the same mind as Ben. Lord Raedric VII, despite being in his keep, the comfort of his own home, scarcely an hour after his child was born Hollow, is wearing full plate armor, his features hidden behind an expressionless steel helmet. He listens first, but her guess about him having gone stir crazy is correct, as is her statement about his wife. Raedric appears to have killed her, the body not even cold, not even moved from the bedroom adjacent to the throne room.

     "You came with the man who brought the animancer back to life," says Raedric, once she is finished. He holds up a hand, signaling his personal guard to relax. Her sudden appearance has startled them, clearly. "Uscgrim told me of him, but I wouldn't have believed it, had I not just witnessed you appear from thin air. I had her killed for a reason, you know. Her kind will be the death of us all."


     EZRA and ALOTH - Anslog's Compass

     The apothecary, who introduces herself as Ranga, sighs. "Aufra sent you, didn't she?" By her body language, and by the familiar way in which she applies the poultice to her xaurip friend, Ezra can tell that she's not a shyster. What she says next all but confirms that she's sincere. "I'll tell you what I tell everyone she sends my way. If there /is/ a cure, I don't know of it."

     Aloth furrows his brow. "Did none of the others tell her that?"

     Ranga shrugs, bandaging the xaurip. "If they did, she didn't believe them. I understand where she's coming from. Being a mother in these times is difficult. It's just that I can't give her what she wants. As for Tana here..." she ties up the bandage and pats the xaurip. "He was exiled from that tribe further up the beach. If you help rid us of them, I can at least give you something to make sure Aufra's baby is /physically/ healthy."


    
Edward Blackwell      A good man goes to war.

     One million, one hundred and thirty-seven thousand, five-hundred-and-four. When he woke up in the Aegis Astray the first thing he did was sit there with a list of the confirmed dead. He read their names aloud to himself one by one, staring at the list.

     A guard comes at him with a greatsword. He grabs the weapon as it's coming. He crushes it in one hand. The metal shatters. A piece of it is jammed into the guard's throat. The man collapses, bleeding out. Edward stomps on his back as he walks past. Stop the bleeding with force and he'll scar up in no time. No death.

     Arrows rain down upon him. He doesn't care. He doesn't even look up enough to acknowledge them as they turn him into a human pincushion. One of them sticks out of his head. Several stick out of his body. Some of them are in his knees. He continues walking, smoke trailing from the cigarettes. This is as close to a Limit Break as you can get with Edward still talking.

     It's not even anger.

     That's the worst part. Watching Edward clinically disassemble a guard who sticks a spear through his gut - crushing the windpipe in one hand, discarding the guard in such a way that when he hits the windpipe pops back out like a balloon. It's dispassionate apathy. He wades through the horde of men because they are between Edward and Where Edward Is Going. The fire of madness roars behind grime-window eyes.

     Not one man is killed. Not one man is left injured. But all of them experience the grim and grotesque feeling of near-death, of suffocation, of strangulation, of having their throat cut out. Several of them get to feel the exquisite pain of being hanged as Edward picks them up and snaps them by the neck like a human whip. When they are discarded their bones reset and they can suck in a breath and be terrified.

     Not one soul is injured in Edward's grim march.

     He goes straight for the keep. The first guard to get in his way inside has a cigarette put out in his eye. It corrects a vision problem he's had for years. It is also excruciatingly painful. The next guard finds himself smashed against the wall. His liver leaks alcohol poisoning out of it. He is still smashed against the wall.

     By the time Edward arrives in the throne room he is a horror from another world.

     Riddled with arrows. His eye has two. His head has three. His neck has one. His Aztechnology tee is torn from repeated spear stabbings, but there is no injured flesh, not even a scar. His coat is shredded, a spectre flapping behind his walk.

     He simply walks into the throne room and snaps his fingers.

     "Show me to my patients."
Tamamo     Tamamo listens to the guards answer without concern for how her display could have impacted the others. She's still focused on the guards when Ed moves in.

    "Oh, Edward..." But Tamamo never finishes what she was going to say. Not where he can hear it, at least. It sounded sad.

    That's how she appears when Lilian has finished holding her hand, then, and when Tamamo's finished squeezing hers. Here stands an obviously divine entity, for those who can recognize such things, and an obviously, dangerously powerful magical fox-woman, for those of far, far less discerning senses. Lilian gets just past her fourth finger in her count of the land's current issues when Tamamo's demeanor shifts from worryingly to poignantly sorrowful. She is entirely on the opposite side of 'hiding it.' It's not just obvious, but assaults the mind of any who look on her like a dream, when the mind /knows/ that what it's viewing is the sadness of 'she who wished to help, but arrived too late,' regardless of what the collective senses attached to the mind claim they're currently seeing.

    Lilian has had extensive conditioning against the like of cognitohazards, which is the sole reason she might be less than thoroughly distracted, should she look to the side. Tamamo is not presently doing this on purpose, or aimed at anyone in particular. It's all still 'on' because she hadn't quite switched it 'off' by again hiding her divinity before Lilian grabbed her hand. The result is a constant buffet of emotion and surety of her genuine nature that won't be discernible from one's own thoughts until they wake from the dream, if even then.

    Eventually, she collects herself, just enough to speak. "We came with one who cures the sick, the maimed, and the dead. He may even cure himself. Please refrain from hurting him. You cannot stop him from his mission, even if you kill him." A moment. "I came to see to your children," another pause, "to your families. To see what curses might be lifted from you, what ills might be aided, and what has happened to the souls of this land." A final pause. "Even if you killed her, I will not lose all hope of mending." She's not referring to raising the dead.

    And then, of course, Edward arrives.
Ezra Mochizuki Ezra listens, and sighs. "I should have known this was that kind of situation. Alright. You want me to deal with the xaurips? No problem." He turns towards Aloth. "Don't take this the wrong way - I'll still need your help, for sure. But I can do this in like, two minutes?" After probably some confusion, Ezra turns in the direction of the xaurips. "I'll be right back. Teeth a good sign of victory? Teeth a good sign, yeah."

And then, he disappears in a bolt of wind, briefly kicking up around the tent. A few minutes later, Ezra returns, just as quick as he left. He's warm to be near, his right arm looks injured, and his jacket is torn up, but he has a pile of xaurip teeth - from when they bit his metal arm and broke them - that he presents as proof. "They shouldn't be bothering you anymore. I focused on shooing them off where I could."
Sumiko Sumiko gives Ben a sideways glance, she doesn't deny the words but she's giving him a stare.  Shaking her head she looks to notice that two of their party are gone.  Well, everyone is doing whatever they want, and she notices Ben going for the sideway in.  She fires a message off, seeing where her money was going to be made.  She does smile to herself.  Ben just gave her a reason to increase her prices.

From nothing, the glass-like blade enters her hand as Ed pushes forward.  Arrows come raining in.  Shards of glass fire up, aiming to smack arrows out of the air before they reach their mark, and shatter upon hitting the structure of the castle, aiming to provide covering fire. She can't hit them all, she moves to try and knock Edward out of the way...

She was too late, and then...

Then she sees hell.  It's like watching wrath...he just goes forward.  He just pushes forward.  He kills people, and then UNkills them.  She follows behind, automatically only defending herself while he goes to town.  It's harrowing, especially from someone like her who's survived the hell that is her own world.  Who's seen terrible things, who's been connected to a grief battery.

Now, absolutely done with it, to get Ed's point across, several glass shards stick in the walls behind each nearby guard and two near Ben's friend.  "I'd listen to him," she says distantly, "I watched wrath tear through your men, and bring them back to life.  I don't want to particularly watch him do that again, or repeatedly do it to you."

"Ben asked me to make sure he didn't kill many of your men, and I assume he still has some hope you can be saved," She says, turning towards him.  So let this man see his patients, and move on so we can solve this whole thing.  Because I am /really/ done with this."
Ben d'Tarkanan TONY and BASTION - Tavern/Wilderness

     Tony's suit flies off in advance of the local toughs from before. The wilderness is a little dangerous, but nothing one of his suits can't handle. It's a good thing, too--because the more predatory wildlife, like wolves and even a bear, seem unusually bold. It's as if something might be agitating them, but what? In any case, clearing the wilderness of those more dangerous animals eventually sees the prey species, namely, deer, more willing to venture from their hiding spots.

     Unaware, the toughs think they're just having a really good hunt.

     Back at the tavern, Tony and the miller discuss the Legacy over drinks. "Some are, but... maybe not enough. If Aufra's kid comes out alright, that'd make one kid in the whole village." He shakes his head and frowns, then lowers his voice, so that no one but Stark will hear him. "With the luck Raedric's been having, I doubt it."
Lilian Rook     Lilian relaxes her bant just a bit when Raedric decides he'd rather try to explain the animancer bit (just a little) rather than rail off on it -- less so the guards relaxing, it seems. "That man, unfortuantely, tends to go where he likes. I assure you he has no idea what an animancer is supposed to be, because *I* barely have any context. It's not as if you have to keep her around just because he 'fixed' her." she says, with a sort of power-businesswoman cool.

    Then Edward just kinda busts in anyways, and Lilian sighs. It is a big sigh. "Why do I even bother." she mutters too loud to be unintentionally heard. The silver lining is that it drives in the idea that she isn't coordinating with him. Not that one would guess, due to the way she and Tamamo look, versus the way Edward looks.

    "The wife is in the next room and should be easy for someone like you." she says without looking back to Edward. "The baby should be your prime concern. If the lord doesn't wish to retain the lady, I can find somewhere else for her. The child -- the heir -- is the heart of all this."

    "And where did d'Tarkanan go? He's supposed to be here to visit. Did he get lost somehow?"

    She loosens her grip on Tamamo's hand, but then doesn't quite let go. "You're very fortunate either way, right now. You know that? Claim it's all by your order and foresight and your fiefdom is likely to soon forget what you've done for the past two years when their dead come home, the roads are walked safely, and their storehouses overfloweth. When the departed god leaves them stricken, you get to bring salvation to them all when calling on your good friend and his powerful connections. Doesn't that sound attractive?"

    It does. Regardless of if he might hypothetically think otherwise, it does.

    "Though, I'd suggest waiting here, over following the doctor." Yeah, Edward gets to suck it when she calls him that, for making trouble. "By the looks of it, you shouldn't have any interest in a pair of cadavers anyways." It'd be best if he isn't hovering over Edward when he's using cigarettes and spit.
Tony Stark Bears are no match for the power of Iron Man.
Probably. His AC is pretty high and he has super-punches. And palmblasts!

That gosh darned /bear/ though.

Meanwhile, at the tavern, Tony sits down with whatever passes for whiskey and reclines in the half-boneless way of someone who never, ever gets to relax. It's awkward in its raggedness. His eyes still shine with intelligence, but he's tired. He's so tired. And here, in this nothing tavern, in this nothing town, drinking swamp water with the vague taste of whiskey, he hears the simple words of a farmer, and hopes for the best. He has someone to tell, some fairy to wish on, an asset to task.

And it's so much worse then that.

"It'll work out." Tony replies, the right-facing insistence of someone who's already made all requisite arrangements.

Lilian Rook and Edward Blackwell, to be precise, have made the arrangements. It leaves Tony to sip something approaching spicy dumpster runoff and 'relax', for a given turn of the phrase.

"It's never enough unless you work hard at it. Life's like that. Family is too."

"Just because you have something doesn't mean it won't disappear. Won't get taken away. It's all work. Sometimes, your work isn't enough. Sometimes it is. That's just the way of things."

"This isn't half bad." Stark lies about the whiskey. The company, though, he's being truthful about.
Ben d'Tarkanan      EDWARD, TAMAMO, LILIAN, SUMIKO, BEN, EDER

     Raedric is not superhumanly strong, nor durable, nor fast. He is not a world-class swordsman, marksman, or wizard. With that said, his will is like iron. The surface of that iron is pitted, rusty, scratched, in other words entirely unpleasant. It must have been strong before--but now, with this paranoid kind of madness (and at this point, that is essentially what it is, Edward can be certain), it is all the more formidable. In better times, it might have made him a strong ruler. Now, it has made him into a tyrant.

     "My family... my child... Your 'patients...' are dead," says Raedric to Edward and Tamamo. The goddess' mental presence appears to have overwhelmed Raedric's personal guard, but the man himself is a bulwark. He believes that what he is doing is absolutely in the right. In other words, he's not in his right mind. "I have seen to it myself." Some of his guards glance uncomfortably towards the entrance to his bedroom, their resolve faltering thanks to Tamamo's efforts. That's where it would have happened.

     Raedric stands from his throne, letting his weight lean upon a black greatsword. He nods towards Sumiko. "That does sound like Lord d'Tarkanan," he admits. "And I thank him--and all of you--for your restraint. But... I cannot allow the healer to bring such evil back into the world. I must insist that you leave--" Where IS Ben?

     "Raedric!" There he is. Ben and Eder enter in from the other end of the throne room. They are a little bloodied, and a /lot/ covered in what appears to be the clotted, dark blood of the undead. Ben looks furious, and Eder concerned, but neither of them near Edward's cold, detached anger. "Would you really force my friends to leave, just as one arrives who could help you? Have you taken leave of your senses?"

     "I have never seen more clearly, Lord d'Tarkanan. All this time, I never thought that it might be she, who was tainted with evil. I will find someone else--a woman who can carry on my line. Osyra's work will pan out, or she will join the others on the tree. But I /will/ put an end to the Legacy, however Berath wills it."

     Ben is frozen in place. After the dungeons, the hanging tree, the forest full of walking corpses, the village living in constant fear and suspicion of one another. He is silent. What is he to do? Words won't work. Appealing to his better nature won't work. "I... I cannot allow this to continue," he says in quiet shock, reaching for his sword.

     "Then it ends," says Raedric. "Here and now."
Sumiko Kindness..?  Or maybe she doesn't want to see Berserk Edward again.  Or maybe some loyalty to her employer?  Perhaps it's a bit of all of these points together.  She drops the blade and walks right towards Raedric, she does not stop, firmly until she is staring up at him.  

The man probably has a bit of a height advantage on her, but it doesn't stop her.  She jumps if she has to, but she smacks with all of her might, in an attempt to get his attention.  "Shut. The. Fuck. Up." She says, pointedly, so that Raedric can pay attention.

"It is not your fault.  You didn't do anything wrong for the curse that caused your children to be born the way they did.  The world causes good people to suffer, even though they may have done nothing wrong.  It is terrible, it is painful.  It hurts.  You want to run away from it.."

"I know that, most of all.  You ARE responsible for everything after.  Right now you are afraid.  Afraid that if you stop, that everything you have done would have been for naught.  Maybe it will be, but what is the alternative?  Did you not love that woman?  Do you not see if you STOP for a second and admit you are /wrong/ then we could fix it."

"So stop being a selfish asshole, accept what you can control and what you can not, and accept some goddamn help."
Edward Blackwell      For once, Edward does not give any outward flinch at being called 'Doctor.' It's probably because he just can't bring himself to care right now. It's evident in the stare in his eyes. The distant stare. The stare of a self-defense mechanism. He's on as much autopilot as he possibly can be without totally losing his shit. Dead grime-window eyes. The factory lights are out.

     Raedric says that he saw to the patients dying himself.

     Edward's fingers twitch. The wedding ring on his finger is slick with blood. Distantly, he reaches over to a priceless tapestry, something clearly owned for generations by Raedric's lineage, and wipes the blood off on it. He takes a long time as Raedric talks. He's not looking at the man.

     Lilian gives him direction. Wife in the next room. Prioritize the child. Yeah. That's something. That's something to latch onto.

     Edward turns left and walks into the bedroom. He slams the door behind him. He doesn't want somebody to come get curious. The settlement might not have a doctor but the Lord probably does. Better not to take chances.

     He kneels by the...

     Edward close his eyes.

     OK.

     He changes his mind. Kneeling turns to sitting cross-legged. The...it's put on his lap. His fingers brush against the skull. He fishes in his pocket.

     Thirty pieces of silver for a betrayal.

     The coins rattle in the bag. The scalpel comes out. He starts shaving the coins down gently over the...over it. He can't bring himself to think right now. Just do. Just let the theory take hold. Bit by bit he scrapes down the coins. Thirty pieces of silver into confetti. They rain down on the child, glittering strips of metal. Thirty pieces of silver is the price of a betrayal.

     As the last piece grinds down to nothing he quietly breathes into the child's mouth, a bit of smoke. He picks his own finger and spills a little blood before the wound shuts itself. A little spit for the phlegm. A little smoke for the bile. A little blood for the blood. Thirty pieces for the betrayal. The body will provide its own yellow.

     Gently he lifts the child in one arm and goes to repeat the process with the mother. A slow, agonizing, grinding process of silver for the betrayal. No need for blood or phlegm or bile this time. She's a whole person. Just the silver to sink into the wound and close it up, and a bit of a lighter against her hand to give cold body warmth. It's not as complicated when they're whole. It's not as complicated when it's just one thing.
Lilian Rook     Lilian doesn't move from her spot. For lack of need, of course. It's a precisely chosen place she'd chosen to stand, and she won't be swayed from it by any current of anxiety, emotion, or reflexive preparation.

    "I'll be the arbiter of whether your wife is tainted by evil or not." she says, examining her nails, yet *somehow* absurdly authoritative for doing so. "Nothing you're doing is putting the slightest dent in the Legacy. Brerath is laughing at you in his grave." She looks back up."

    "If you don't like what the doctor is doing, that's fine; I'll remove her from this world myself, so you won't have to lay eyes on her -- or it -- ever again; it costs you nothing to sit around and ignore it. You've already done plenty enough to end it. However, you'll have to stop relinquish that grip on the idea of being an arbitrator of fate. You are, more than anything right now, a victim of this. So stop lashing out, and Let. The. Professionals. Handle. It."

    "If it ends, it ends precisely one way, and it's not heroic; it's with Brerath laughing at you all the way to hell. So ignore the doctor if you have to, let my very good partner do her work, and make up with your dear friend while you still have the chance, before you end up regretting it."
Tamamo     "A healer sustains life," Tamamo says to Raedric, "and you are right, in that a healer does not banish evil. This is the duty of the exorcist." She seems to raise herself up, though that's purely illusionary. Her will resolves, her posture straightens, the sense of illimitable sadness recedes. "Rejoice, then, that I have come to your aid. Mere ingratitude will not deter me. You are not yet barred from the greatest of blessings."

    She's still holding Lilian's hand, the hand of her knight. "I will go, now. You will see to it that I am not disturbed, yes? It is dim, I know, but allow me to hold onto this hope that all may be made well, or well enough. Recrimination can yet wait." She lets go, slowly.

    Faintly, she calls to Edward, but well enough for him to hear. He answers. She makes her way into the room with the recently deceased. As already proven, none of the guards will stop her. Any looking at her would know, without knowing how they know, that she can do no wrong. It's unfortunate that Raedric isn't included in the number affected.

    Inside, then. She shuts the door behind her. She's not here to talk, or at least, she isn't here to talk with Ed. They both have things they need to be doing. He has to raise the dead. She has to look for their souls.

    It's not exactly a common malady, the hollowborn. The concept of a soulless life is nothing new to her, but those were only those things into which none had breathed the Breath of Life, the Divine Spark, or anything of that kind. Those things which lacked the necessary, older-than-ancient component of reality that endlessly carries life from body to body, as fundamental a piece of celestial machinery as ensuring that the seasons progressed from one to the next. And yet, here, the system has broken down.

    Tamamo no Mae reaches for the child. "Here, here, little one. Tell me, where are you? Where have you gone?" She reaches not just for the body, but for the child's Fate. With eyes closed, she examines them like threads making up a tapestry, winding from grandparents, to parents, to child, on into tangled, shifting futures, with all the colors of emotion and the snarls of tragedy. She reaches out and looks for where that missing thread could be.

    She is calm, and by her presence, the room may also become calm. Far better to see her here, she suspects, than for the late wife to revive seeing only a man with arrows still stuck in his body. 'Bedside manner,' Tamamo has, and that's the support she grants the doctor.
Ben d'Tarkanan      TONY - Black Hound Inn

     Swamp water is just about right. The miller knows it too, and scoffs. "You shoulda been here right after the war. Guy that ran this place before Pasca used to have his own brew. Stuff would knock you flat on your ass, and taste better goin' down besides." Despite knowing that Stark is at best, misinformed about the quality of the local drink game, the miller appreciates his company nonetheless.

     "It's been a long time since someone around here gave me the time of day, 'cept to bitch about the grain. The name's Trumbel." He extends his hand for Stark to shake. "Y'know... those woods are dangerous. I... thought about what you said, about us sticking together. I could, uh, probably afford to lower my prices a little." He clears his throat. "I better get back to it, but thanks for your help." He doesn't just mean the help with the men in front of his mill.


     EZRA and ALOTH

     "Two minutes?" Aloth doesn't seem to have taken it the right way. Perhaps he doesn't like boasting--but it's hard to argue with Ezra's results.

     "Well... I doubt you'll have trouble keeping our foes off of me, at least," says the wizard, clearly impressed.

     He isn't the only one. "That fast?" She cranes her neck, turning to look behind her. Sure enough, the xaurip encampent is a collapsed heap of leathers and bones, with not a one in sight. "Alright, then," she says, shrugging her broad shoulders. "You're lucky I have some spore pods already, otherwise I'd have sent you after some." She grins, and gets to work diluting those, as well as several other ingredients, into a bubbling orange potion with little flakes floating in it.

     "One small sip a week, from now until the week before she's due." She doesn't relinquish the potion until she's sure Ezra understands. Either way, he has it--and the choice of whether to tell Aufra the truth is ultimately up to him.
Tony Stark Tony accepts Trumbel's hand, the clap of palm and the pump at the elbow every bit as lively as Tony isn't. He is a man with, at the very least, a decent handshake.

Tony lifts his glass of swamp grog and smiles, maybe a little less tired.

"Tony Stark. It's nice to meet you. If you have an idea for a decent corn mash, that can get pretty fiery. Maybe with some local berries? Even if a god is dead, it doesn't mean man can't live a little. We have to."

"Ther has to be a point to all of it."

Trumbul excuses himself. Stark sits in the bar for a while after, alone with his thoughts and the finger of amber liquid he recieved as payment for a 'good deed'.

A while after, Tony can do nothing but tisk at himself. "Damn. This must be why Steve doesn't really drink." He grouses, standing up and throwing some credits on the table that he doesn't have to on impulse of habit.

He always overpays when he's out and about. What is meaningless to him is meaningful to someone else.
Ben d'Tarkanan      Ben clashes blades with Raedric. Though Raedric's sword is larger, his reach longer, Ben's strength seems unnatural for a man of his size. Eder watches, uncertain as to whether this is the right decision. Sparks fly as they trade blows, neither one able to breach the other's guard.

     Sumiko is able to slap Raedric's helmet during a particularly tense clash. He jerks his head to the side, and attempts to break--but Ben grasps the blades of both swords with his hand, hard enough to keep his unwell friend from attacking Sumiko.

     This was a mistake. He's locking blades with someone who once considered him a friend. He's made himself look foolish, read the room poorly. But, perhaps, he can save face. If he just holds this blade here, and allows someone who's actually good at this to take over... then maybe Raedric will listen. Maybe then they won't have to fight. His blood runs down the black greatsword as it cuts into his hand.

     "Your people live in fear that they might end up on that tree. They dread hearing from you--they associate you with tyranny and death." Raedric yanks at the sword, but Ben keeps his grip. His blood splatters onto the floor. That was poorly spoken. "STOP! If you serve Berath, it is in the same way that a warlord does. Is that what you want? To be remembered as a tyrant?"

     In the bedroom, Edward is able to bring Raedric's wife back to life. He is also able to revive the child--but there is something wrong. The baby is living, but it isn't alive--it's catatonic, not paying attention to Edward or its mother or the surroundings. His efforts to fix it are met with an impossible resistance, as if something on Eora were jealously guarding the child's soul and not letting it go. He can feel it, fighting his grasp, tugging... Something on this world is actively keeping souls from being put into bodies.

     It takes a lot of pulling to snatch the child free of that grasp. It's as if he were attempting to pull free a length of chain stuck in the gears of some uncaring machine, stubborn in its lifelessness.

     Tamamo will have a more refined sense of where to look. The child's Fate is as a thunder-cloud, dark and nebulous and roiling. It is hard to trace that golden thread, hard to know what might befall the child. As with most storms, there are winds that blow in the distance, exacerbating it. There are three of them, in total, blowing the cloud, muddying her attempts to see it. It glows brightly once Edward snatches it back to this world, and the clouding influence washes away. Still, according to what she saw, the first of those ill winds is near, perhaps only a day and a half away.

     Back in the throne room, Ben's appeals to Raedric's kindness fall on deaf ears. But something about being prodded to act like an adult by Sumiko, or perhaps the religious appeals from Lilian, gets him to relinquish his grip on the sword. It is only due to Tamamo's earlier mental presence that Ben wasn't skewered by the guards, making his false move a... rather stupid idea. But he, and Raedric, are alive. So, apparently, is the young Raedric, whose crying is that of a healthy newborn. Raedric drops his sword with a clatter.

TO BE CONTINUED