Part 2: The meeting of paths

Sable shrugs. "We'd still be more useful as allies."

Adding on to Sable's point Akiran nods to the spot where Duar-Ken dissolved. "We did it once through dumb luck. Why take the risk? The Orc and Dwarf are very determined, to the point most would call them stubborn. A few words could save you endless trouble."

As the others begin to approach the lone figure, Lilliana remains near the statue, but pulls her neutron star through the hole and pops it into existence near the figure; however, as it now appears things are turning to a parley she keeps it spinning nearby, but not actively targeting this fellow. She cautiously moves forward, pulling the sphere to hover menacingly above her head as a very unsubtle reminder of the potential for violence. When Thezra suddenly vanishes, she drops into a defensive crouch and prepares to send her miniature star hurtling the short distance, but then hesitates as Akiran and the others continue their parley. She didn't much like Thezra, but she was one of them.  Lilliana steels herself, forcing aside the jelly like feeling in her guts from the fear she felt in this moment and forces her chin up as she drags along the star, rapidly spinning above her head. "Where did you send her?" 

The man opens his mouth to speak before he is interrupted by Lilliana. He turns his unseeing gaze to the neutron star floating by the statue, then down to her. "Somewhere safe where she can be alone with her thoughts. She'll be back soon." He returns his attention to Akiran and Sable. "Maybe. Answer me this: what is Daerheim?"

Lilliana nods and for some inexplicable reason, she felt... empowered  by his recognition. She felt the fear slide away a bit, a firmness settled into her belly and a bit of pride took it's place. She was worthy of this man's attention, she was not just some pawn pushed to the side to be ignored and that gave her power. It gave all  of them power. While it was true that he possessed powerful magic, the mere fact that he was even engaging with them meant something. It could very well be amusement or sport, maybe idle curiosity, but... what if it was out of concern? They were a wildcard perhaps... He was hoping to find out how much they knew? She did not know, but what it was... she felt herself standing just a little bit straighter. 

Thezra's mind is disoriented in the void she finds herself in, the great nothingness stretched all around her, her body locked up and unable to move. The time passes by like hours, but all she can see in the black is red. When the minute ends she reappears in a blink back to where she'd been, collapsing to her knees to catch her breath as she shivers from the cold of the space. She's smaller once more, though the pleased smile on her face seems to have grown in contrast... "Oh... you didn't like that did you?" She starts to laugh but instead coughs out the words as her senses return to her. Slowly, she stumbles back to her feet, regaining some balance despite feeling like she was attempting to stand upright on the side of a wall. Her vision has only just started to adjust to the comparitively blinding light of the room as she tries to point a hand in his direction, falteringly.  "Like I said, hide all you like behind magics and minions and manipulations. Won't change a thing in the end."  Despite her bravado it takes all her strength to remain standing, her knees shaking as they were under the trauma of the dimensional warping.

Ascian walks quietly into the room behind the others, having first looped back behind for Ember. The wolf is quiet now without a visible threat in the way, a silver shadow to a pale shade. His eyes blink wide as Thezra is waved from existence with nothing but a noncommital explanation and a shrug, sent somewhere he can't see with a display of magic he hadn't thought possible. He's seen light born into existence, rooms fill with water, libraries created from seemingly nothing at all – but to be sent elsewhere voluntarily, and then supposedly come back whole, as the man indifferently implies? To do it with control, without waiting to be taken? His pocket burns with the weight of what he'd bought earlier, and he thinks of the cleric. Of who might be waiting, if he can only get back. It seems to be too good to be true, and yet . He doesn't realize he's dazed and staring until Thezra appears again, shuddered back into existence seemingly safe and hale. The step he takes forward is involuntary, as is the stark stop as the same word washes over him that Marianne had spoken in Fireblade, and then summarily pulled out from under him as if he were a child too young to appreciate it. As if the weight of the knowledge could break further something that had never been whole to start.    "I've heard that before. Daerheim. What does it mean. Why is it secret."

"If you don't know, then it's not important," he says, shaking his head sadly at the blank faces and Ascian's question. "All will know eventually. It seems it's not your time yet." 

"Yes. It is."  Something muted but warm flares through Ascian, a shallow imitation of what might have been a stronger emotion a year ago, or ten. He walks toward the barrier, fingers flexing to points so strained they hurt.  "Something is happening. I know it is.  Tell  me."  The inflection is strange and foreign seeded within his normally monotonous delivery, so out of place  his voice almost breaks. He hasn't slept in a month, hasn't eaten in what feels like longer; has seen and felt himself grow weak so Ember can grow strong, all at the instruction of a being in another realm whose place here he took. And here, in front of him, again, is someone with answers who would rather withhold them than help. It's heavy, so very heavy, and Ascian's shoulders were fragile to start. He stops at the edge of the barrier, the light doing him few favors as it illuminates the gaunt planes of a face near waxy with exhaustion. "Or do what you did with her. Send me somewhere with someone who can."

A genuine look of curiosity comes over the lower half of the man's face. He turns to Ascian and slowly reaches up to his face and pulls his blindfold free. He opens his eyes, and the whole party can see that one is a normal brown, while the other burns with a bright green ferocity. He studies Ascian carefully for a long moment, the gaze as disconcerting as it is interrogative. Ascian can feel the green eye burning into him, searching his very essence for something that a small part of Ascian fears he will find. "You...you have already been touched," he says, a smile crossing his face that only reaches his brown eye. "Stay your current course, and you'll have your answers." With that, the man waves his hand. A vortex of swirling energy appears behind him, and he steps back into it, disappearing without ever breaking eye contact with Ascian. The vortex snaps closed, and the wall of force dissipates. 

As the man vanishes, so too does the hammer. She was startled at first by Ascian's....outburst. There wasn't any other way to describe it. Truth be told, it worried her. He worried her. She was afraid for him. She frowns. Perhaps 'afraid' is the wrong word for it. She certainly cares for his well-being, and something felt off since he'd returned from the cleric. She holds against any instinct she has to approach Ascian, knowing his aversion to touch. Instead, she approaches the now-vacated dais. "Don't let him get in your head, Ascian. We'll figure this out. We'll figure all of this out," she nods to Thezra.  "And we'll do it together." She looks at all of them, her eyes full of fire.

Ascian stares at the man, pierced to the floor on the wrong side of the barrier by the intrigue in that brilliant green eye. The flare of whatever that desperation had been recoils and fades beneath his ribs as the portal closes around the man who it seems isn't blind at all, who Ascian comes to worry might be able to see  too  well, and snaps one more person with all the answers from view. Touched. Cursed. Wrong. Afflicted. A dozen different words he's been called ever since childhood, by parent, priest, and sorcerer alike. The cruelty of patience is it implies he has time to start, but the further down this path he walks the less he thinks he can find his way to the beginning again. It's a long moment before he realizes Katrin is speaking; that there's something wet and cool pressing against his palm. He blinks, the movement slow and cold, and looks first to his side, where Ember has arrived, staring up at him with large grey eyes that trust him more than they ought. He swallows, running a hand over the wolf's great head, and nods hollowly in acknowledgement to Katrin. "Yeah. Right." If there's any part of him that believes what she's saying, it doesn't make it to his voice. He focuses on Ember for a moment longer, willing himself to lock in on the tactile, before deadened eyes lift to Thezra at last. "Where did you go."

Akiran stares in disbelief at Ascian, shaken at the man's request. The orc punching the beehive was expected, but the pale man, more than anyone else in this crew was a professional. Efficient, detached, a natural trained killer. Not the guy you want sitting next to you on a tavern stool, but definitely the one you need next to you when push comes to shove. Sincerity in his voice he looks over to Ash adding to Katrin's reassurance  "Yeah keep your head up mate, don't let the spook show get to you." Looking around he makes a beeline towards the axe wielder whose leg he broke. Looking him over he sees the cultist's chest rise and fall, slowly and a bit ragged but still breathing. Looking to Katrin he says "got any Tempus juice left in the tank? Could be worth it to wake em up and see what we can shake out."

Ascian’s question catches Thezra a bit off guard, but she shrugs down at him. “No idea.”  To her own surprise Thezra finds herself nodding along with the dragonborn and makes her way to him to help prop the man up.  “Think between the two of us alone we can shake pretty hard, so I imagine quite a bit, yes?”  Her reservations about his greed complex aside, she was grateful the man had had the forethought to keep one alive, Spirits know she’d been in no state during the battle to think that far ahead. The thought brings a twang of regret to the forefront of her mind, but she shakes the irksome feeling away. Duar’ken was dead. Then he wasn’t. Anyone would’ve been shaken by the experience. Right?

Katrin give Akiran a slight frown. Tempus juice? That's just not how that---...ah never mind. "What are you hoping to get from him?"

Ascian nods in numb recognition to Akiran, drifting back toward the edge of the room as he wilts beneath Thezra's overall lack of alarm. Their interest in interrogating one of the men conjures memories of a similar setup at the start of this all, with orcs in a tent and Callahan's starry disapproval. His knife had been far steadier then than it would be now. Casting an uncertain look at the wizard he once knew as Thrandimir, he wonders if they're in for a repeat performance of if that, like his face, has changed too.

With a laugh Akiran nudges the unconscious fighter with his boot and looks to Thezra "Between the two of us we can shake loose any secret the poor bastard has."  Turning towards Katrin he adds "The oaf probably doesn't know much but no harm in seeing what he can spill before turning him over to The Heartlands. May get lucky and find something ole Cedrick or Duar mentioned without realizing it. Also a bit a proof for the Heartlands that we actually got rid of the demons."

Katrin nods, her mind flashing back to their journey to that first orc camp, and the....methods that were applied to glean information from the survivors. It felt like years had passed since then, though it had barely been a few weeks. She glances at Ascian and Sable, then back to Akiran. "Perhaps....we should employ gentler methods until more severe ones are needed." She herself didn't much care either way, but she wasn't sure if such extreme measures would create another divide. And she found that she didn't want them to fall apart.  She liked Sable more than she cared to admit, and she was even starting to find Thezra less grating than before. Ascian, she'd grown to like fairly quickly. She felt compelled to help him. To keep him safe. Lilliana was....young. In many ways, she reminded Katrin of her own sister. The sister she would see very soon. She felt a faint connection with Akiran, perhaps through their shared love of the forge. No, she couldn't let this little group of theirs fall apart.

With a laugh Akiran spreads his arms gesturing to the bloody battleground around them, before nodding to the unconscious man. "If he's got a lick of a sense, waking up to this hell will be as severe as we got to be. Especially when he realizes his leg's busted to shit. Besides I've always found the right word to be more effective than more base methods."

"We can offer him some of the drink their tentacled friends were serving up topside, sure. He can enjoy it while looking out over all his dead friends here,"  she chuckles. Truth be told it didn't matter too much to her  how  things were done, so long as they done  successfully . That said, she'd found simply asking nicely did not usually get people talking. Maybe that reflected more on herself though?  "As a small bit of extra, subtle encouragement though,"  her voice trails off as she turns to Sable,  "perhaps it would help if he saw your friend Cedrik had also fallen here. If he sees the man is gone, could lead to him fearing retribution from him more than us, among other things. You think you could convince him he sees that?"

Sable is lost in thought, musing on the details of Cedrik's strange appearance and the man's mysterious conversation with Ascian, when Thezra turns to the wizard. "Hm? Oh, yes. Certainly," he replies, first absently and then with more enthusiasm. The old man clicks his fingers and an illusory simulacrum of a broken and beaten Cedrik shimmers into view on the floor nearby. The man's blindfold has fallen to the ground and his green eye has been destroyed by a deep and bloody wound.

"Your creativity never ceases to amaze, Sable," Katrin says as the broken body materializes on the floor nearby. She crosses to the cultist, kneeling beside his unconscious body. She splays a hand across his face, each finger touching his skin across his brow. She closes her eyes, and mutters to herself in Dwarvish. A bright, warm light appears at each point her fingers meet his skin. It flares brightly, then melts into his skin. She stands up, taking a few steps back, nodding to Akiran and Thezra. "He's good to go."

The broken man coughs once, a spattering of blood coming to his lips. His eyes flutter open, and for a moment, he looks about in confusion. When he spots the white glint his femur poking through the back of his calf, he screams in equal parts horror and pain. His voice is strained, and he looks up as he croaks out a weak, "What the fuck do you want?"

Akiran kneels down and looks the human in the eye before shifting his gaze to the broken leg, in a friendly tone   "That probably feels a bit excessive huh?" Before the man can respond Akiran nods his head back to Sable's illusion of "Cedriks" dead body "But maybe it's better in comparison? W hat do we want?" The dragonborn lets the question hang in the air as he stands to his feet. Gesturing his armored gauntlet to Thezra, hoping the Orc will help in a bit of good guard, bad guard. "My friend mentioned something about grinding your bones and bread, and making a cup of your skull. All very disturbing if I'm being honest. I want you to answer all of our question truthfully, and maybe you will get to walk ..ahem.. crawl out of here. Sound fair?"

The man grimaces and looks up at the dragonborn, then down at his leg, then up at Akiran again, fire in his eyes. But as his eyes begin to wander again, he spies the dead, illusory form of "Cedrik" on the ground nearby. "Oh fuck..." he says, repeating the phrase over and over under his breath. "The fuck have you done? You've killed us all. When they find out he's dead, they'll fucking kill us all. Every single one of us without even breaking a sweat. Fuck fuck fuck fuck...."

Thezra grunts, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning forward to loom above the man. "Well lucky for you I can make sure you don't have to worry about that for long." She kneels down on one knee and takes the man's chin in one hand, turning his head side to side as if inspecting a prime piece of meat. " Kumash damun!" she bares a toothy smile, her tusks jutting out from her lower lips,  "Leg's mangled but the rest of you looks quite tender."  Letting him go, she rubs her chin, frowning as she pivots to look at 'Cedrik'. When she turns back, her face is curious. "Wait who was he anyway? And who is so powerful and would care so much about an old blind man that they'd 'kill us all'?"

"He was...was one of them . The watchers. The hearts," he says, the tremor in his voice either from pain or fear. "Oh fuck. The rest of them will be here soon..."

While the others partook in the interrogation, Lilliana began rolling the bodies of the fallen as she looked for anything of value, but failed to come up with much more than a handful of coins and weapons. She pauses for a moment, to glance up at the man being questioned. "Who are the Watchers?"

"I don't fucking know, that's just who they are," he says. "They check in, they give orders, that's it. This is the first time I've ever seen one."

"When do they check in?" Sable interjects brusquely. "How do they make contact with you? Where is your organisation based?"

"When they want to," he says. "I... gah ...I don't know anything more than that. They don't tell us anything, they just promised us that we would change the world for the better."

"Hmm,"  Thezra shoots a highly skeptical look to the man,  "Not so familiar with human history but tell me, have d emons historically been linked to bettering the world?" 

"Are you fucking deaf?" the man says through clenched teeth. "The demons were Duar'ken's doing. Not ours."

She leans forward, stepping down slightly onto his leg just enough to apply some firm pressure. "Duar'ken was  your doing. Whatever your group did enabled him." Easing back, she folds her arms, "But explain exactly what the plan is to make the world better. If that's the goal, you must have been doing something  quite noble down here in the sewers."

The man's grimace turns to a sneer that's only interrupted by a bloody cough. "I don't know if you've noticed, but the world's a pretty fucked up place. The Heartlands subjugating the cape at the expense of its own people. The dwarves are a bunch of warmongering profiteers. The elves have their heads shoved so far up their immortal asses that they can't see anything. Karnopolis is rotten to the core. There's not a place on this continent that isn't dying a long, slow death. Anything, and I mean anything  they are doing to change that will make it better." Another cough. More blood. "But sorry, I wasn't privvy to their plans. I'm just the muscle."

As the man prattles on about the fools gold he took as promises, Akiran lets out a dry snort. If he didn't find idealist so entertaining he would pity them, a few well placed words and you can have you very own fanatic ready to kill and die for your cause. And worst of all they'll do it for free. With a sarcastic chuckle he says "And I'm sure your watchers would have brought about a new age, where everything is so completely different. With them in charge I'm sure the people would have voice, and it would be all sunshine, puppies, and whiskey with no one ever going to war or abusing the smallfolks right?" Shaking his head he adds   "Word to the wise, if fortune smiles upon you and you manage to live beyond today. Look out for yourself, and fight for gold or power because that's sure as shit what those in charge are doing. " Cross his arms and looking down at the man  "But I don't think my friend is going to let you leave here. Because i f I'm honest you haven't given us shit. Maybe if you let us know what Duar-Ken was supposed to accomplish by raiding Peak Farm, I can convince her not to be too nasty to you?"

The man glares up at Akiran, and then at Thezra. "I don't know anything," he says. "Do what you have to do, bastards."

Katrin stiffens at the cultist's off-hand comment. A phantom ache runs through her shoulder, through the knotted scar tissue left by her family's new business. And she finds herself becoming frustrated at the dead-end questioning.  "He doesn't know anything. We need to move on."

Uncrossing his arms, the silvery scales around his face creased Akiran says  "That is unfortunate."  Resting his hand on the pommel of his sword he says  "  You fought well, valiantly  even. Before the unpleasantness starts tells us your name, I would hate for you to pass unrecognized." 

The man laughs, and makes an obscene gesture at Akiran. "My name is fuck you," he says through his pained sneer.

Thezra hefts her sword up over her shoulder and brings it level over the man's body. "Well then, well met, Fuck you, and say hi to Duar'ken." She pulls the hilt up so the tip is dangling over the man's chest, and without waiting, brings it straight down. There's a sickening crunch  as the blade strikes, carving straight through. For a moment, she thinks she actually did it. The sight of Duar'ken had dredged up something dark within her, something primal and angry, and though she felt it'd faded with the fight, the man's drivel and prattle had seemingly reawakened it just as quickly. Her breaths are shallow and ragged for the few seconds afterwards, and she looks around at the faces of the others in the room, then down to the man. The blade struck perfectly in line with his heart, and had seemingly plunged several inches through the ground itself... but was just to the side of him, a scant few inches from his body. At once a stirring of both relief and disappointment come over her, but she can't tell which outcome she'd truly have preferred. Kneeling down, she looks into his eyes and glowers, staring into him as if expecting some meaning to come from this all. But like his words, his eyes were empty. "Let's get out of here already." Standing, she quickly yanks the blade back out of the ground, then storms off.

Katrin's eyes turn troubled as Thezra storms out of the room. In the brief silence, she clears her throat.  "Well. Any suggestions on the fate of our friend, here?"  

Akiran shrugs at the man and says "Guess it's your lucky day. " Taking some rope from his bag, the dragonborn binds the man's hands and takes a few steps away from prisoner.  Waiving his companions over he sighs and scratches a scale on his snout he adds "Personally I'd turn him over to the Heartlands, I'm sure the general will want to hear more about these Heart Watchers and he's the only one who can confirm our story and make sure we get what's owed to us. And 'sides, a few days in a dark cell may help him loosen his tongue and jog his memory."

Or make him an easy target for the ones he betrayed.... It made her uneasy, how willing Akiran was to turn everything over to the Heartlands, but she didn't feel it was right to say anything. To say that she agreed with the cultist, not about everything he'd said, but what he'd said about the Cape, that she certainly felt. Instead, she just nods. "As good a plan as any." She glances in the direction Thezra had disappeared. "Though it seems Thezra is inclined to disagree on the "what's owed us" bit. Still." She gestures to the bound man. "Someone's going to have to carry him. He's not walking anywhere on that leg."   

Zachary H. said: "When they want to," he says. "I... gah ...I don't know anything more than that. They don't tell us anything, they just promised us that we would change the world for the better." "Just a second, please, Katrin," Sable intercedes with icy calm, "I'm not quite finished." "Oh, and if Thezra doesn't believe that she's owed anything, then she's more than welcome to forfeit her share of our payment," the wizard adds as an afterthought, before turning his attention to their prisoner. Sable squats besides the broken man and a long, thin knife materialises in his hand as though from up his sleeve. Ascian and Katrin recognise the blade from the orcs' tent. The old man's piercing grey eyes pin his victim to the floor. "Now, 'fuck you' - and, please, feel free to give me something else to call you - I'm afraid that that's really not a satisfactory answer. Everybody knows something. If you didn't speak directly to the Watchers, then somebody passed down instructions. Whether they told you anything or not, you know how you received that information. You are going to walk me through your day, through whatever small part you played in this larger organisation. If you refuse, I will keep you alive and in such agony that you beg me to end it. Shall we begin?"

"I'm a stocker at the market," he says, his eyes laced with a trace of fear, but mostly bitter resentment. "I only come here when I'm summoned." He points at the man whose throat Ascian put an arrow through. "That's the guy I report to. That's all I know. I'm a guard. That's my part."

"Thank you," Sable answers with a polite nod and the knife vanishes once more, "you've been very helpful." Pushing himself slowly to his feet, as though careful not to hurt his aging back, the wizard turns to Katrin and Ascian. "Do you still have that scroll of speak with dead that we found?"

"I believe so.....just...." she reaches into the bag Thrandimir - now Sable - had passed off to her before they had left the tavern for the Crossroads. A scroll materializes in her hand, and she lifts the flap to show the both of them. "What did you have in mind?"