As Kuro entered the tent, he was greeted by two familiar acquaintances. Two beings he had met many times before, even if he had only known these two instances for a short time.

The first was the heavy, faintly oppressive and damp presence of the Captain. The silvery-haired half-breed was no stranger. Not his demeanor, at least. An abyssal pit of memory and brutal, sanguine calculus that dragged itself through the world like a knife through sinew. An implacable glacier, built up by countless bonds of camaraderie and hatred alike as forged on battlefields and in the halls of petty lordlings. As intimidating as the Captain's presence was, there were plenty of other glaciers in the North, and plenty of men and women just like him had led, conquered, and died in the Northern Succession Crisis.

Well. Perhaps not wholly like him. Even as man more familiar with Dwarven-kind than most, the Captain was the only Terraphenge Kuro had ever even heard of. From what he understood, before the succession wars Dwarven steadings would rarely take in Human laborers, artisans, and apprentices, and had war not fallen upon his own township that would have been Kuro's own fate. Such steadings tended to be driven more by desperation rather than good-will though, and even such reluctant cohabitation had only come about after hundreds of years of harshly enforced segregation by both races. The Captain though, was so ancient that one versed in history was left with the suspicion that he had come about during or even before the War of Human Aggression. Perhaps his substance was of the same reckoning as any other leader of men...but there was simply [i]more[/i] of it there.

The second was the glistery, bristling intensity of the sorceress, alarming in precisely the same fashion as a spiny-haired boar that had caught alight whilst in full charge, bellowing both dare and challenge at anybody and everybody that had the temerity to stand before it. An unstable miser that may as well have held the whole of the land in their palm, yet seemed to be consumed by an obsession to prove [i]everything[/i] of themselves. Though Kuro had seen her kind before in many allegedly refined noble courts, his greatest experience with her ilk had come from earlier in his life. Back when he had only disdainfully been called Cutthroat Kuro, a youth just starting to enter into true manhood.

[quote=Chalarensis][i]"Sometimes it don't matter how careful or smart you are. Sometimes, the people who get to call the shots got there because there were born powerful. Not necessarily nobles or mages - even mundane ruthlessness will do. People who managed to claw their way to the top not because of any ingenuity on their part, but because of chance applications of power at just the right time. But the seeming difficulty and the vast rewards will make them feel, ha! Supernaturally entitled because of it! The sort of people who learnt the right lessons - but not all of them, and not in the right order. You'll see their type in a lot of highborn courts. There's a reason royal mages and viziers and spymasters never really live past five-score years. They make too many enemies and either finally slip up and get stabbed in the back, or else get usurped by some other new flame.

"No. Long as you don't antagonize them, though that's harder to avoid than it might seem, they will poison themselves to death with their own hubris - and to the likes of all you scamps are inconsequential in the scheme of getting work done. They make for damn lousy retainers. Always try to stiff you or kill you once the job is done, so don't even bother. You can always see them coming from the next range over though, cause they stink like corpses at subtlety when they have to leave their little bubbles of intrigue. The ones you really need to look out for..."[/i][/quote]
The warlock's words had proven right, too. The few times he had been offered jobs as Blackguard Kuro by sorcerers of Lyssa's ilk he had just let the opportunity pass by, and inevitably learnt two weeks later that some obscure mythical tower of catastrophic portent had lit up like the sun and then exploded after a band of plucky adventurers had defeated the very same mage in question. Powerful, ruthless, self-aggrandizing, exceedingly dangerous...and boringly predictable.

After making a polite, if superficial effort to afford the Imperial Sorceress the seeming of an appraisal in order to appease her disputatious pride, Kuro backed away from the center of the tent and lingered just behind one of its flaps, permitting him to view those who entered behind him whilst remaining out of view and staying proximal to the enclosure's exit.

His eyes were first drawn to the dossiers Sergeant Odran clung to. Unread and unopened their contents could not be surmised, but the disparate individuals who began entering the tent gave Kuro a faint idea of what the contents might have been, though for what particular purpose the Captain had assembled them he could not fathom. The dwarf he recognized by scent, as the malodorous fumes of some alien Southern herb lay about her person like lamplight. One of the company's advance scouts, though he knew not her name and had made no prior efforts to acquaint himself with her despite their infrequent crossing. Triala he knew from her position with the Wizard's Wagon quartermaster, though they had only ever spoken briefly as they were in separate platoons...and of course from the night when she had nearly burnt the whole of the camp to the ground. Then of course, was Kaerun. Though he had never spoken with the old elf, Kuro had deliberately tracked him down as the most skilled swordsman in the camp as a contingency the moment he learned Tribal had also joined the Company.

The others were strangers to him, but from the nature of those he did he could divine that they were probably of curious and unusual quality.

Once the Captain began to speak, Kuro's suspicions were confirmed - and his apprehension mounted as he learned that Lyssa would be accompanying them. The assignment had the signs of a setup written all over it. Though he was not wholly certain of the Captain's true character even after five years, he could easily envision the man sending word several days in advance to Orvston to have the first band of riders to approach the city gates be struck down by a volley of arrows and magefire...a few of the looser bowstrings and the insufferable imperial watchdog amongst their number before heading North to greener pastures at the behest of King Jaython. While the more professional side of his reasoning all but ruled out that possibility, Kuro was not one to leave even remote and inexplicable possibilities unchecked.

[i]'Perhaps...perhaps not. Though there is no question. He would kill all of us without hesitation if the need was present.'[/i] Kuro thought with utter certainty, his gaze settling almost lazily at some point in space behind the Captain's head as the half-breed spoke. Kuro's flat expression of nonnegotiable apathy did not falter. He never let his mask slip.

Kuro dismissed the Captain's presented explanation for the assignment off-hand, tuning most of his words out beyond the broad parameters of what the group was expected to do. Double-guessing his intentions or else overthinking the contrivance of his plan would merely be counter-productive, and while close examination of any given plan might normally allow for perception of otherwise unforeseen challenges in practice it was usually better to simply plan on the assumption that absolutely nothing would go according to plan (including the plan for that assumption). His foremost skill as a Blackguard had been his ability to profit from the conspiracies by would-be-collaborators whilst also escaping unscathed. This assignment would prove no different even if the Captain did want all of them dead.

Once the Captain had dismissed them, Kuro immediately approached Triala soundlessly from behind, stepping into her vision a faint distance from the side in order not to surprise her overly-much in case those longer ears of hers did not do her any favors.

[quote=Lyssa]“Well I know you mercenary types are slow and all. Getting...”[/quote]
"Hail Firestarter." Kuro said to Triala, his tone neutral and unaffected despite his choice of address for the fiery elf. His words neither interrupted nor occluded the sorceress' words significantly, and it was apparent that he was not attempting to impede her speech. The man simply did not appear to care that she was speaking.

"Our approach to Orvston should not worry the militia overmuch. You and one other amongst us should ride your charger to the gates in order to formally announce the approach of an envoy. Ease their nerves, get them talking even if they don't want to. I have a respectable sum of regional Marks local to the area from my prior life in the North that I will lend you if you think greasing their palms might help, but you should select one of us to ride with you in order to dissuade any temptation on their part and...keep things civil." He paused for a moment, and if one of his eyebrows seemed to raise ever-so-faintly in reproach, it was gone in a breath. "I myself will be unable to accompany you. Would any other here think they would be suited to the task?"

The most disconcerting aspect of Kuro's address of Triala was neither his silent approach, nor his disregard for Lyssa's words nor even his contentious address - but how he looked at her. Or [i]did not[/i] look at her. His eyes were low-lidded and unfocused, lazy and relaxed - settled in a fashion that suggested he was staring at some point in space behind her head, and she just [i]happened[/i] to be in the way. As though she were not even there.