Dark Jack

The Prophecy

It was originally my intention to let the scene progress all the way to everyone being in the deo'iel's room so that they could perhaps get onto subjects that were more interesting to them - Morgan in particular, since he's been on the sideline so much - and get things moving, but then they unexpectedly demonstrated their powers and such, which I figured I had better leave a break for the characters to react on.

The Prophecy

The Duchy of Zerul, by a road in southwest

"Heh, you hear that? More people for our troupe already," Olan chuckled, somewhat too preoccupied with Thaler's state of mind to worry too much about Jaelnec being confused about what he was talking about. Her silence, along with the things she had said shortly before the squire's footfalls became audible in the distance, worried the old man quite a bit, and he was concerned that she might end up doing or saying something that she was going to regret if she was not somehow lifted out of this pit she had dug for herself. "You know what they say: a stranger is just a friend you haven't met yet, you know? It'll be nice with a little time to get to know them."
He put his arm around Thaler's shoulders and leaning in, grinning mostly for Jaelnec's benefit as he merrily jostled the girl. "I'd never blame you for anything, even if I did remember what happened," he whispered to her through his grin. "And I might not remember much about Rilon, either, but I do know that 'evil' is subjective; it's not the same to everyone, you know? Even Rilon might have 'good' qualities, just as any demon might. And Rilon's a tricky one, too, so I'm sure he'd have tricked anyone, given enough time. The only one who blames you is yourself, and I'd really wish you didn't."

Letting go of the Daywalker and pretending not to notice the puzzled expression on Jaelnec's face, Olan stood and beamed his younger kinsman a smile. "Well then! Let's go meet our new friends!"

The Prophecy

The Duchy of Zerul, by a road in southwest

Jaelnec could not help but to smile at Domhnall as he nodded his head in acknowledgement and gratitude, then immediately turned away and headed back in among the trees that surrounded them in a brisk jog. He had only known this man with oddly colored skin for a few minutes, but the Nightwalker had already decided that he quite liked him. He had been nothing but helpful since the moment they had met - disregarding his reaching for his weapon when they first emerged, which was a perfectly understandable reaction to strangers approaching in the wilderness, the chaotic times taken into consideration - and the sort of awkward enthusiasm with which he had agreed to watch Aemoten had been the final push that made him accept Domhnall as a trustworthy individual. Spirits, had Jaelnec been in that situation he would probably have reacted and replied similarly, himself, and the resemblance between himself and the stranger only made him all the more willing to trust him.
The woman... well, she had healed Etakar, but aside from that she had not actually done much of anything to give the squire an impression of anything aside from a certain sense of nobility and - though he admitted to himself that such might be an unfair judgment to make just yet - cowardice. She did not speak Rodorian, which made communication awkward at best, and spent her time hiding in a tree rather than actually interacting with them, leaving all of that to Domhnall; a chivalric task the acceptance of which only made Jaelnec appreciate the man all the more. And then there was the last one, that huge black-furred creature that had been sleeping through the entire encounter... obviously he had no way of knowing what kind of person that thing was - or if it was indeed anything more than a beast with faintly humanoid built - but he knew that it looked very strong, that it was not native to this part of Reniam, and that it looked like it was bred for killing. If he was going to place any bets on which one of the three strangers that had brought down the lohk, he would wager that the black-furred one did most of the work. Bows and arrows - which appeared to be Domhnall's weapon of choice - rarely did more than infuriate lohks further, and one had to be exceptionally skilled - and lucky - to do any serious damage with a small blade. Iridiel might have other Favored powers than healing, but even so it still seemed most likely that the gray-skinned brute had been brought down by another beast... especially considering the condition of its corpse.
No, he had no way of placing anything but minor faith in Iridiel, and had no reason whatsoever to trust the black-furred one, but he trusted Domhnall. More than anything, that man seemed... good. Like, just a genuinely nice and likeable person.

But as the Nightwalker made his way through the relatively short distance that separated Aemoten and their new acquaintances from Thaler and Olan, his thoughts turned to more concerning matters, namely what he was actually going to say when he reached the others in several seconds. It seemed as though he spent far too much time pondering what to do or say things these days and how to do or say them, rather than actually just doing and saying them... and he was not even entirely sure why he had grown so concerned with how people interpreted his words and actions. He had always been a firm believer that good intentions counted for much, and could at times excuse events taking a turn for the worse because of them. Back when he had been leader he had been careful about how he worded his decisions, sure, but he had never obsessed about every little thing as he did now.
As little as he wanted to admit it to himself - and he would never admit to anyone else - he figured that Thaler was probably the reason for his newfound criticism of his own actions. Having watched Aemoten trying desperately to help her, only to have the Daywalker take his every attempt to do so as a direct attack or insult against her... there was probably no way witnessing something like that would not affect a person, especially one as young as Jaelnec, and make one more wary of how one was interpreted.
Which made it all the more important that this particular message was delivered the right way, since Thaler was probably still in a bad mood, in lack of a better term, and liable to receive the message in the most personal way possible. He did not want to anger or sadden Thaler, least of all if she blamed the news on Aemoten. Jaelnec would bear the woman's ire and hatred if he had to - he liked her and would suffer from it, but he would survive - but the Sekalyn had received too many blows already. He wanted to protect him... somehow. Even from this.

"Jaelnec's coming," he heard Olan tell Thaler up ahead when he was getting close, and he could not help but to admire the older Nightwalker just then, despite how little he had appreciated the crazy man until now. Not only did he have an inner peace that allowed him to just speak whatever came to mind - with no filter, apparently, considering the tales he had been telling and observations he had made since they met - but he had a quality to him that made him different, somehow. Even though he said stupid and outlandish things, even though he made comments that, which would have hurt or angered a person if another had made them, people never took offense when it was him. On the contrary, Olan seemed to make people smile no matter what he did or said; as though by simply being him, it excused all of his shortcomings and made everyone happy to be around him, and eager to call him their friend.
Except Rilon, he reminded himself, and felt a knot tighten in his stomach. The Blood God had a lot to answer for, but the question was whether he had not received justice already? Having his almost unimpeded freedom taken from him by his relic having fallen into the hands of another immortal... but he was concerned for the future nonetheless. Rilon was a resourceful god, and many of his most faithful followers were almost as devious as their lord; there were no guarantees that he would not find a way to retrieve Black Thorn, and what then?
Laon help us if that ever happens, he thought, only to feel the knot in his stomach grow even tighter as he realized that actually might not be enough. In the end, there was probably nothing in the planes that could protect them from Rilon's vengeance. They just had to hope that it would never come.

"Hey," he called out as he ran past his two waiting companions, slowing to a halt a few steps onto the road, next to the donkey with the raven on its back... something that the squire wisely decided not to question the logic of. "Etakar apparently found a healer for himself in there, so he's going to be all right." That seems like a good way to start, he thought, and hoped he was right. "The healer and her companion...s... are even headed to Zerul City, too, so we can accompany each other on the way." He spoke quickly, he noticed; evidently nervous. Kreshtaat. "We'll stay here for a few hours first, so everyone can recuperate a bit, but we'll move out in time to get to the city before nightfall.

---

Zerul City, the Drunken Dove

The blue-haired one nodded her acknowledgement once the terms of their speaking in private had been set, and then she and her sister both turned to the innkeeper, fixing their inhuman eyes on him. "Why are you still standing there?" the masked sister asked him sharply, a dangerously impatient edge to her voice. "You're wasting everyone's time; get the drink. Now."
"Uh, yes," the innkeeper said with a nervous laughter. "Finest is two rodlin per mug, since it's hard to get and all, and -"
"I said now," the masked demonspawn growled, small cracks appearing in her mirror-glass eyes from which shone a dim, dirty brown light, and for a second one would be able to hear the bottles and glasses on the shelves behind the counter rattle and the wood of the building creak, even if one did not notice how the floor trembled slightly under their feet. Then the blue-haired one's eyes cracked as well, unleashing a faint white glow from within them; the tremors seized instantly, and the masked sister's eyes stopped glowing.
The innkeeper took the hint, though, and hurried off to fetch I'on his drink. "It's on me!" he shouted back to them as he practically dashed through a door into the next room, presumably headed for where they stored their kegs of rarer fare.

"Relax," the blue-haired deo'iel scolded her sister, her eyes still glowing from the cracked pupil-like holes. She yanked on her tuft of hair, hard. "You need to relax, dear; you know what will happen if you destroy the city."
The other one just growled unintelligibly as the cracks in her eyes - dark and empty without their glow - seemed to close, leaving her eyes smooth and uniform once again. Once her sister's eyes had 'closed', the blue-haired one's did the same.
The innkeeper was back within thirty seconds, practically running to the counter with a large glass-mug of clear liquid. He hurried so much, in fact, that he accidentally spilled a few droplets on his way, which he managed to avoid getting on his pants with a deft sideways dodge. Little indentations appeared almost immediately in the wooden floorboards where the droplets hit.
"Here," he panted, handing the mug to I'on. "Th-thank you for your business..."

The Prophecy

Rhaevnn, do you want to post before I advance things in that scene?

The Prophecy

The Duchy of Zerul, by a road in southwest

Whether the horses stayed where they were or not did not really figure at the top of Jaelnec's list of priorities at that point, nor did retaining his own ability to immediately defend himself should these strangers decide to betray them after all for whatever reason. Freagon would have scolded him for leaving himself so vulnerable at a time where he had no reliable backup - unless one counted a giant, grumpy, wounded monster from foreign lands as backup - but in the end there was no way he was not going to help Aemoten. Let Domhnall assault him while his hands were occupied and the Sekalyn's weight hampered his mobility, if he wanted to; Freagon might have been able to turn a blind eye - or a missing one, in his case - to a companion in distress if it meant jeopardizing something of a greater scale, but Jaelnec could not - would not - abstain from helping his friend.
Perhaps that was another way he would end up changing the Knighthood of the Will if he really was to attempt a restoration of the order? Though the purpose of the knighthood had always officially been to defend the people of their kingdoms and those of its allied nations, the Knights of the Will had always protected their allies by destroying whoever threatened them. Their order had always been very offensively oriented, and while the weapon of choice and techniques taught by Freagon were not universal to the knights they still embodied the general philosophy of the old knighthood: kill the enemy before it can kill anyone else.
That was probably also one of the reasons the knighthood had faced its slow extinction, as any failure by a Knight of the Will usually meant ultimate defeat and doom for those it was trying to protect. In the face of the more organized and sustainable national might of various militaries and guard corps to defend countries from mundane threats, and with similarly more organized and generally more reliable organizations like the deo'iel to take care of monsters and otherworldly hazards, the Knighthood of the Will - so inexorably stuck in its old ways - was fated to die out as it lost the support of the lands. The world had changed much over the past centuries - had gotten a lot bigger, with everyone joined together more closely - but they had not. Ironically, the knights of the old times would have been right at home in Rodoria as it was today, with the kingdom divided and everyone guarding their resources as to not leave themselves vulnerable when surrounded by enemies, and indeed Freagon had had more business over the past decade than he had for half his life... or so he had claimed. There had certainly been plenty of work, but Jaelnec had never seen a coin for any of it, since his master was more than happy to spend it all on himself.
They would have been right at home in this time, indeed... which made it all the more vital that they were not forgotten. This was the time for their resurrection, but if it were up to Jaelnec, they would return better than before, not the same; realize their mistakes and correct them, and learn to face the future instead of clinging to the past.
A momentous task, to be sure... which made helping a weakened man off a horse seem insignificant in comparison.

Once he had gotten Aemoten safely situated on the ground some distance from the horses - and with the animals between him and the large black-furred creature - he heard Domhnall express his hopes that their current condition at least entailed a nice story to be told. Did it, though? Even though Jaelnec had figured most of what had happened out by now through what he had been told and what he had seen, even he was not entirely sure he understood what had happened to them today. Thaler had received the Black Thorn, Aemoten had tried convincing her to give the relic up to another god, Rilon had found out and turned on them, they had fled, been attacked by crows and yths, the latter of which they killed, and ended up trading the relic for protection. Then a member of the Zerulic Ducal Guard had turned out to be a member of the Death Clan, had tried to kill them, and died in the process...
"Even if we could tell it well," he told the stranger with a wry smile, "I doubt that you'd believe us."

When Aemoten addressed him the last time before seemingly succumbing to exhaustion Jaelnec responded with a resolute nod, a stern determination upon his face that seemed to exaggerate the responsibility placed upon him quite a bit; as though the leader of their group had left him a quest to save the world to undertake alone, rather than a minor errand to get Thaler and Olan in here with the rest of them.
He stood once he was sure that the Sekalyn was not going to say anything else, turned to survey the area and then looked at Domhnall, hesitating. "Could you look after him for a moment?" he asked, inwardly hoping that Etakar would hear and understand this request as well, since the beast had much more reason to keep Aemoten safe than this unknown character. "I will only be gone for a moment; the others are not far."

The Prophecy

Zerul City, the Drunken Dove

A keen observer might have taken note of the fact that the blue-haired deo'iel started holding her breath tensely when Ixion mentioned the Blue Tool by name, and her masked sister likewise seemed to first frown when it was relayed that the Blue Tool was impaled upon one of 'his' weapons, and then seemed to petrify entirely when she mentioned 'him' - obviously the Fixer - attacking them.
None of the other things they had discussed mattered at that point, and the two demonspawn synchronously turned their heads to look at each other, burning intensity in both sets of mirror-like eyes.
As though the two had shared a swift telepathic conversation with one another they turned to face Ixion again, once more synchronously, and stared at first him, then the other two, with wide eyes. It would be hard for anyone to read the masked sister's expression from just the eyes, but a sniffer might pick up on the thrill and eagerness she was feeling; the blue-haired one was easy enough to read, though: her expression was one of fear and awe.
"Maybe we should speak more in private?" the blue-haired one suggested, her voice trembling slightly as she spoke. She then lowered her voice to a whisper, barely loud enough for Ixion to hear. "But really, don't talk about the Fixer, especially when other people can hear it."
"People who do tend not to live very long," the other deo'iel pointed out, her voice also lowered, albeit not as much. "There's a reason nearly nobody's ever heard of him; people who do have a tendency of dying soon after."
"We have a room," the first sister told them, "if the three of you would like to join us."

The Prophecy

So who wants to go next on the Zerul-side? Anyone wants to come with input before I have the deo'iel react?

The Prophecy

I'd say it's 100% the former, as I had completely forgotten that Sekalyns don't bow or even that Aemoten had had such thoughts about the custom. It is a pretty obvious association to make, though... I'd presume such was actually part of its original meaning, along the lines of "my head is yours if I displease you", just as a lot of customs we have today have somewhat outdated and sometimes grim significance. Off the top of my head I can think of shaking hands ("we confirm that our hands are empty and that we are not going to stab each other"), saluting ("I raise the visor of my helmet to let you confirm my identity") and touching glasses when toasting ("we make sure to spill a little of our drinks into everyone else's drinks, so that if we get poisoned, so do they").

The Prophecy

Oh, I'm aware that our bodies are quite adaptable. I think we may have discussed something similar, possibly in a PM conversation at one point, but for one thing I know that in some kinds of martial arts - from what I know, at the very least certain styles of kung fu - the artist would actually train its bones by hitting hard objects, as the repeated damage to the bones caused them to harden to a much higher degree than bones usually would. Aside from that, I can think of a number of other examples... Like how people who live in sterile environments tend to be more susceptible to illnesses, or that humans were much more self-cleaning or dirt-defiant, however you want to put it, before they started bathing regularly. (Random fact: One reason a lot of other cultures thought the Vikings an odd bunch in their heyday was that while the parts of the world they usually interacted with thought little of hygiene, the Vikings were actually quite keen on cleanliness. Even back then the Vikings were known to habitually bathe once a week, and to wash their hands and faces every day. They would also wash, comb and braid their hair and beards. Another random fact: although the Viking culture was mostly patriarchal, women were actually held in very high regard and respected just as much as men, and usually enjoyed considerably greater freedom than in the rest of Europe. Though there were cases of female Viking warriors (shieldmaidens), they were also in charge of the finances of their family, and could actually end up rather rich and powerful in that regard, and were very strictly protected from unwanted attention from men; just kissing a woman who did not agree to such a thing was punishable by law. Not only that, but while infidelity was unacceptable for Viking men, if a woman partook in it and ended up pregnant, her husband was expected to unconditionally accept the child as his own, whereas the actual father had no right to it. Eh... that was a lot of random.)
Anyway, yeah, organisms are adaptable.

The Prophecy

Eh, okay, I corrected the mention of that term in the entries (though I wonder why no one told me until now; I must have written that dozens of times, just in my time on RPG), and the placements you came up with sound like they would work.
And yeah, the degradation of ones with the disorder is a result of constantly going slightly below full capacity to avoid going over it, which bears the same results as draining oneself much more on rarer occasions. (It reminds me of a novel by Dean R. Koontz, in which the main character has xeroderma pigmentosum, which is a condition that - at worst - renders the body incapable of repairing the damage to DNA by ultraviolet light. The main character basically has to take great measures just to avoid bright artificial light and, obviously, sunlight, and lives mainly in star-, moon- or candlelit darkness. The consequences of neglecting to be cautious about light, the character described, were accumulative in the sense that several seconds of bright artificial light every day of a month was as dangerous to him as spending a suicidal minute in direct sunlight. Anyway, it's the same kind of principle with this: the effect is accumulative.)