Dark Jack

The Prophecy

So you're leaving it up to me, basically? Hmm... In that period Gaath committed several murders in Nemhim, so I figure that'd be as good a place for the rumor to originate from as any. As to where in Nemhim... which murder could it be... it'd probably have to be one near a populated area for a rumor to start...
You know what? It occurs to me that Gaath actually killed a woman not very far from Borstown, so let's say that the rumor shares its origins with the story itself.

Now... any chance anyone would like to post in the near future?

EDIT: In fact, it would be nice with a little lifesign in general from @Ashgan...?

Mahz's Dev Journal

Pointless though it may be considering the frequency the mistake occurs - which I presume is part of the reason she has more-or-less stopped correcting people making it, with the other part being that she either doesn't notice anymore or just don't mind enough to ensure that the distinction is made - I still feel like I should correct this when I see it, if for no other reason then simply because it bothers me to see a friend misinterpreted in one way or another:
Shienvien is female.
Just thought you should know.

The Prophecy

The Duchy of Zerul, by a road in the southwest

Olan could not help but to smile at Thaler's words and squeeze her hand back with his, grateful and appreciative of the effort she must have made to try to sound this positive with the state of mind he knew she was in. She had not given him any answers that could tell him why he possessed these unusual abilities, but he had not expected any, either; even if he had known why he was like this before he had lost his memory, he knew himself well enough to recognize that he would not have told anyone else about it, at least not in a manner that others would believe to be true. An ability like this was too easily exploitable, and he would much rather be viewed as a regular person than a special entity. He was not the hero of a tale, he was just the narrator of it; not the main character, but just a helper lending the main characters aid. Was that what he was? Or was it just what he wanted to be?
It did not matter in the end, though. So what if he did not know how he had gotten to where he was? Did anyone ever, really? He was happy being here, with these people, doing good things and helping them smile even in the face of the most sinister perils the planes had to throw at them; helping them survive, protecting them from themselves. To Olan, there was nothing more important than dancing down the road and seeing his companions smile at his foolery.
After all, normal was boring. Boring! Ha! Certainly not him; not Olan, the explorer extraordinaire!
Explorer... yes. That sounds right. That is what I am.

"We'll be all right as long as we have each other to be weird around, then," he chuckled, closing his eyes and enjoying the feeling of the warm sun on his skin in between the breaths of chill wind. "We should go find a bunch more weird people and become traveling entertainers, you know? Going from town to town, letting the boring normal people have a laugh and a gasp, seeing the world, meeting all kinds of folk... wouldn't be too different from what we've been doing so far." He shook his head, laughing quietly at the similarities between that idea and that of being on a quest to save the world.
When he opened his eyes again, the Nightwalker's gaze fell on the donkey who had wandered in front of him, with the raven perched on its back. He grinned at them, and nodded his head at them.
"By the way, the raven told me her name is Beatrice. The donkey... I have no idea what that's called, though. Either I don't understand him, or he just doesn't want to talk to me, you know?"

The Prophecy

(...)the dissolving of an entire person probably take him some thirty minutes, making it much too dangerous to stick around that long(...)

Dark Jack

In case you missed that, I meant to say that Gaath usually doesn't leave only the skeleton, but mostly spot-melts people, often going for their faces or throats (in case it wasn't clear, either, the ability requires Gaath to remain in physical contact with the body for the full duration of the melting (the solvent is potent, but neutralizes quickly), so he would have to stick around the dead body for half an hour in order to leave nothing but the skeleton). So any victim Ixion found would probably not have been reduced to a skeleton, but just have its face and/or throat melted, and possibly some other unprotected spots that Gaath happened to melt during the struggle previous to the murder.

Eh, going back further than four months is possible, too, though I'll still need the time from which the rumor originated so that I can determine where Gaath was at the time. (If it goes back more than nine months chances are significantly smaller that Ixion heard anything, since Gaath was out of Rodoria for three years before then. If one goes further than five years back, he wouldn't have had the ability to melt people yet, so that's as far back as it can possibly go.)

The Prophecy

Ah, Gaath doesn't actually melt people completely into puddles; that particular ability works by having its wielder being capable of exuding a very potent solvent that is mainly effective against skin, hair and flesh, but not very effective on bone. Not only would the dissolving of an entire person probably take him some thirty minutes, making it much too dangerous to stick around that long in most cases, but the skeleton (and various inorganic possessions) would remain mostly intact. Interestingly it is less frequently the melting itself that kills with this ability, but rather the noxious fumes resulting from the solvent reacting to the victim's skin and flesh that ends up choking the person to death or poisoning them... that, or an artery or air-pipe being dissolved.
I don't think Ixion should have actually seen Gaath, though... both because Gaath was pretty notable to look at even if he's not doing anything a month ago - his immortal blood being quite evident from his appearance - and since Ixion would probably have witnessed Gaath using some of his other abilities too, then. And of course the fact that Gaath didn't usually go near larger populated areas like the cities due to his aforementioned unusual appearance.

But a month ago, yeah... around that time he should have been in southwestern Gilmah, I think. Four months ago he did have his melting-ability, but if Ixion heard of him from back then, he would have been in... in northern Wenal, actually, near the Savage Woods.

The Prophecy

Ixion could have happened upon Gaath's trail before, sure. "How much of Gaath's movements" you can use, though... that would depend on how recent Ixion's observations would be. Obviously an isolated case would just give Gaath's location at around the time Ixion found the leavings... but what do you mean? Most recently (over the past week or two) Gaath has been moving through Etlon into Pelgaid, along a course giving a wide berth to the east of Pelgaid City, and through Pelgaid into Zerul.
If Ixion is supposed to have found the scene of Gaath doing something from before that, I'll need a time so that I can trace back where he would have been then... and so I can trace back which abilities he would have had at that point. Gaath is only fifteen years old, though (but was born adult), so it can't be longer ago than that.

The Prophecy

Zerul City, the Drunken Dove

The innkeeper was sufficiently distracted by the deo'iel discussing their business with the other unusual group of individuals that it took several seconds for him to realize that he was being offered money, and another couple of seconds after that before he collected his thoughts enough to retrieve the silver coins from the penin's hand, and even then he simply pocketed the Rodlin without counting them and without considering to store them somewhere safer, but simply went back to listening to the others' conversation. Deo'iel occasionally visited Zerul City when a merchant discovered that it had accidentally purchased a shipment of goods infested with yth, or when a mage decided to dabble in the forbidden arts and summoned a demon too powerful to control, but they rarely stayed for more than a day or two, and they had never been beyond the fourth circle. To be able to listen in on two sixth circle deo'iel discussing their business was incredibly exciting for ordinary people such as the innkeeper, who only ever experienced adventure second- or third-hand.

When Morgan addressed the demonspawn he was met with furrowed brows and confused frowns. "Wait, what?" the blue-haired demonspawn asked, so taken aback by his question that she stopped yanking on her hair. "The deo'iel... Gaath is not deo'iel. I don't know what you have heard about the Order, but it is actually very rare for demonspawn to join, especially since we rarely care about anything but the Dread Mother's parting wish. And we are hunting him because the deo'iel are monster hunters, and while cursed ones like demonspawn and vampires are a gray area between man and beast, Gaath's actions have named him a monster. He has killed quite a few people, and one of the demonspawn he consumed was even deo'iel; that is why we hunt him. He is dangerous, and needs to be stopped."
"And he is not named after the Wanderer," the shrouded one took over. "He is named after the concept of death, not the Spirit of Death. The name a demonspawn receives from Himyth is less of a name and more of a directive; an order we cannot ignore, and which defines us. I imagine that Gaath would be compelled by his name to kill to sate it, or perhaps even just keep company with the dead. My sister and I are both Baigai; pain. We are compelled to inflict as much agony on those around us as possible, and have a constant urge to hurt others." She averted her eyes. "We circumvent this desire by inflicting pain on ourselves instead. That is what our Mother-given names are; they are not indicative of our power."
"But we promised to keep this brief," the blue-haired one resumed. "So just to be clear: none of you have noticed anything unusual that could hint at where we might find Gaath?"

The Prophecy

Well, there's obviously a lot of rotation in the list of deo'iel, as due to how popular they are and the convenient way to escape the law they represent they have a constant high recruitment-rate, but it is also fairly easy to die doing deo'iel work (the veteran deo'iel in the innermost circles tend to be the one with the highest survival-rate)... So the actual number of deo'iel tends to fluctuate a lot, but usually they'll have between one and two thousand agents distributed across their various bases. They can cover a lot of ground and a lot of monster-occurrences with that, especially with most ordinary requests or situations being assigned just one or two teams (so six or twelve individuals). And even then, a bunch of them have time to train the newbies.
(Most of those one or two thousand deo'iel are obviously of the outermost circles - first through third - and only a hundred or so of those have been recognized as competent enough to get to the fourth circle. There are maybe seventy deo'iel fifth circle across northern Kirirak, and less than ten sixth circle-members. Oh, and just three deo'iel of the innermost seventh circle, the overseers of the Order.)

The Prophecy

Oh it's not impossible, and he may very well have been sheltered... the odds are just somewhat against living for thirty years in a northern country and never having learned anything about the deo'iel or demonspawn. Even in remote villages that has never seen either, and probably won't within a lifetime, both are pretty well-known thing, even among children. Deo'iel are pretty much what most adventurous children dream of being and call themselves as they play heroes (even if deo'iel are rarely that straightforward), and demonspawn are the bogeymen of the Prophecy-universe, the kind of thing parents like to scare their children into compliance with tales of. And in a major city like Seclyr, not hearing about them would be even harder; possible, but unlikely. I'm not contesting that it could be the case, I'm only explaining why I was initially so in doubt about whether that could really be true.
(If there was a Rodorian city to live in without having anything to do with deo'iel, however, it would be Seclyr City. The deo'iel almost never go there, partly because many deo'iel are mages and thus would be prosecuted (and likely executed) in that duchy, and partly because deo'iel are less needed there (Seclyrian warriors are liable to hunt monsters themselves rather than ask for outside help)... which is less of a factor in and by itself, but becomes much more relevant in that it means that Seclyr doesn't never donates any resources to the Order. As altruistic as many think the deo'iel for hunting dangerous monsters without asking for any recompense, they do tend to focus their efforts protecting those that help sustain them.)

The Prophecy

Huh, Morgan must have had a much more sheltered life than I thought, considering the pretty much universal renown (and to a lesser extent infamy) of the deo'iel. All right, just wanted to be sure because it seemed odd.