BountyOfTheSeas/Session O04

<Diamond> Diamond waits as the mortals catch their breath and wipe the sweat from their brows.
<Diamond> The great rat's heart was still beating at a leisurely pace.
<STonine> The hoots and howls of the ghosts running amok over Black Flag in the distance carry hollow across the township when the wind turns north. A wind that would once have brough the fresh smell of the sea floating through the streets now only brought fire, death, decay and hate.
<STonine> For days the battle had been waged. Mortal on mortal, mortal on ghost. And all the while the petty conflicts added to the strength of the ghostly horde that infested the pirate isle like rats.
<STonine> No, not rats... rats were a clean and natural thing... this was an abomination.
<STonine> A few screams echo across the buildings. Such sounds seemed to carry further these days.
<STonine> A few fighting men with drawn swords marched a small perimeter around the square in which the precious small treasure of life cowered. This was a waypoint. Salted and protected, but none of the ex-gang members let their guard down.
<Diamond> "Let's go. There's more salt in a warehouse in the east ward"
<Diamond> Diamond rallies her ragged troops with words of encouragment "You want to die or not! C'mon, hurry your asses up!"'
<STonine> "Yes boss." One of the men Valis responds, making a rallying signal with his blade above his head. "Lets move!"
<Diamond> The exhausted group hustles, as best it is able, to the east ward. Ghosts look on hungrily in the shadow, but sunlight and the Last Harpoon keep them back
<STonine> A few of the close quarter guards, young women with spears and medical supplies help the injured civilians to their feet. "Its time to move now... not much further and everything will be okay."
<STonine> Valis moves close to Diamond and mutters in a low voice. "We're coming back with fewer and fewer each time."
<Diamond> Diamond ranges ahead, sniffing out wounded for the medics. She quietly slays some of the wounded to keep from accumulating too many and slowing down the group
<Diamond> Diamond's ears twitch, listening for the quiet whimpers of wounded buried under rubble
<Diamond> She lifts up a fallen wall to recover a man and his child. She has to pry the baby off the dead wife so that the men can burn her corpse as her eyes stare ahead, empty
<STonine> "I'm getting sick of the smell of burning bodies." A female soldier with twin scimitars mutters, covering her face with a loose sleeve.
<Diamond> "You get used to it after a couple years."
<STonine> "I find that hard to believe." She retorts.
<STonine> "Keep moving!" Valis growls at his subordinate.
<Diamond> "Alright, we've cleared this district. Valis, set the buildings aflame. You, keep your scimitars ahead and scream if you see the big one I told you about." she hadn't seen Soul of Zeleny yet. The absence made her nervous
<STonine> "Aye." The woman nods and jogs out ahead, in the mean time Valis' men hurl burning torches into the buildings, through windows or open doors.
<STonine> From within comes the sound of roaring flames and choruses of unhold screeching as the few trapped ghosts strong enough to rise during daylight hours burn with their bodies.
<STonine> After a long walk through the streets, bathed in light the protectors and their charges arrive at the safest place in Black Flag - Wheel District North. Teams of helpers - anyone trained in first aid rush forwards and tend to the wounded civilians and fighters.

---

<STonine> Nightfall.
<STonine> There would be no mission tonight. The men were tired, and the salt was low. Time would be taken consolidating supplies, checking weapons and preparing for the push.
<STonine> In a couryard of a brilliant and ancient mansion throngs of refugees sit, meander and talk. Coughs and cries of pain carry up into the cool night air. All were watched over by the eyes of the rat.
<Diamond> Diamond sits at the top of the tallest roof around, her gleaming eyes looking for a shadow at night
<STonine> "Where is he?" A flippant little voice says from Diamond's shoulder, tickling at her sensitive ears. "That's the question you ask yourself isn't it fair damsel?"
<Diamond> "Oh, how I missed you Lidara"
<Diamond> Diamond's sarcasm could kill, but as it happened her interlocutor had died a few days before Diamond's Exaltation
<STonine> "Now now." The beautiful woman stands. Gold and green hair falling about her shoulders, smooth and soft like the strange translucent silk that adorns her body. "There is no need for that..."
<Diamond> "So, what do you think of his new incarnation?
<STonine> "What do I think? Darling, I'm a part of *your* subconciousness - you already know." Lidara snidely replies.
<Diamond> "Did everyone talk like a savant in the first age?" the barbarian grumbles, but she'd heard the term before.
<Diamond> Slaughter had told her the first time this happened.
<Diamond> "If you're my subconscious, could you stop calling me darling? Here to catch a glimpse of your old master?"
<STonine> "Darling, come now, I'm not here to give you *all* the answers - that would make you weak." Lidara smirks. "I'm here to help you arrive at what you already know - I'm not someone seperate, you must understand that, little one. *You* called me here."
<Diamond> "And what do I already know?"
<STonine> Lidara does not answer. She turns her gaze to the people below in the couryard as if they are only barely there. "Why have you made such an odd little collection?"
<Diamond> "Solars made a mess. Trying to clean it up, trying to get these people out of here. "
<Diamond> "If nothing else the ones who manage to survive this should be pretty tough. I can make myself a nice little army."
<Diamond> "What did that Fallen One want down there anyway? He took some artifact, Zeleny's Heart?"
<STonine> "Why?" She says simply. "See that man down there? In another life he would slit your throat ear to ear."
<STonine> "Ah... you come to the point quickly - unexpected - bravo!"
<Diamond> "I don't have another life. Ear slitting is a useful skill."
<STonine> "What the Fallen One wanted with my husband's heart is important but it is not the matter at hand - why do you gather mortals so?" She asks.
<Diamond> "What did you do with mortals?"
<Diamond> "I told you. To save them from this, and maybe do something useful for them afterwards."
<STonine> "Your counter-questions only halt the process of understanding little one."
<STonine> "Useful?" She remarks condescendingly. "Like what?"
<Diamond> At 9 feet, Diamond didn't feel much like a little one, and was more than a little sick of this attitude. She didn't buy this 'subconscious' stuff. 'totem spirit' seemed more plausible to her
<Diamond> "I could use some troops. And I know this whole mess was made by Exalts. I have a guilty conscious - yours, probably"
<STonine> "Pah! Troops. I'm sure that little boy with the club foot will make a fine pikeman. Half of them can barely stand!" Lidara rolls her eyes. "YES this mess was made by exalts, but you're considering only the tip of the iceberg, you're not thinking of WHY."
<Diamond> "Enlighten me."
<STonine> "Enlighten yourself, girl." She sighs. "Look at the sequence of events - and what you're doing as a result."
<Diamond> "Enlighten me."
<STonine> "Repetition does not strengthen your request in my eyes any more than it would yours." Lidara sighs.
<Diamond> "You've come here many times, Lidara, but you've told me little. If you have anything to say to earn my respect, say it now."
<Diamond> Diamond was a Barbarian at heart, and like most Barbarians, she expected people to prove themselves
<STonine> "Earn your own." Lidara sighs, defeated. "You call me here for help only to be dragged to the bottom by your own stubborn ignorance."
<Diamond> "I called you nowhere. Your shard picked me, spirit. Perhaps my way is not so ignorant."
<STonine> The woman begins to fade from sight. "Mistakes happen, child. Take my husband for example..."
<Diamond> Good riddance Diamond thinks, jumping off the roof

---

<STonine> With Luccio's directions you help the wounded captain through the deserted and rubble-strewn streets of Black Flag. This sector was hit very hard by the swarms of ghosts, and the destruction caused by them and the panicked mortals is evident.
<STonine> "This entire suburb was...was lost in a s-single night." Luccio gasps, limping along with his arm over Verdant's shoulder. "It's an older area... we... we think that the sewer tunnels allowed them to amass underneath after they took the..."
<STonine> "Ah... after they took the central area of the city around the ConsortiumBountyOfTheSeas/Guild slave-den."
* Zeleny looks at him for a moment before glancing away. His eyes are wild. He sees the bodies laid all around. A large woman with the low-cut bosom of a prostitute lay over the corpse of a sailor. Half her head was missing. "It came from the slave-den, then? You're sure?" Of course it had. He remembered the ghosts there, the glow of their eyes and their angry hissing as the Exalts forced them back.
<Zeleny> They hadn't broken the salt barrier.
<Zeleny> He was almost sure.
<Zeleny> His eyes meet Verdant's for a moment: �Did we cause this?
<Zeleny> The slaves. He had left them chained.
<Zeleny> "Has anyone been back to ...to look at the Consortium?"
<STonine> "What?" Luccio coughs. "No one is that *insane*... they say thats where it all came from. Captain Rho *eventually* wants to drive them back in and seal up the entrance."
* Verdant closes his eyes for a moment, replaying the scenes from their last encounter in Black Flag. A moment later, he looks Zeleny straight in the eye. He makes the slightest shake of his head. The salt was intact when they left.
<Sarasvati> "Someone must have, even so. Or something."
* Zeleny nods slightly back. ��At last a small reprieve. "How much success has Captain Rho had organizing opposition?"
<STonine> "Best at the..." Luccio shifts to a more comfortable position as he talks. "At the moment anyhow. We're having *some* effect... but we're running low on salt, men and morale, even with her leadership."
* Verdant raises an eyebrow at Zeleny. The salt may be problematic, but the other two problems sounded simple to rectify. Simple for Exalted, anyway.
<Sarasvati> "Running low on salt? You're an island. There's salt water all around!"
<Verdant> "Boiling the water away to get the salt is not a simple process. And you can see for yourself how problematic setting up even a simple process would be here."
* Verdant shakes his head. "It'd be easy to work with small quantities, but that wouldn't make a dent in what is needed...let alone what is wanted."
<STonine> "Yeah... mostly we've been raiding the warehouses of rich men, other gangs and such - they wont give us the salt - they ask an extortionate price for it, which we cant afford." Luccio nods.
<Verdant> "You also have the problem of people who are either inexperienced with wards, or too scared to use the proper rituals, instead relying on bulk of salt, which only escalates the demand."
<STonine> "Not only that, but rival gangs go on 'barrier breaking' missions against their rivals. Sneak in, scrub a nice gap in an unguarded line... and let the ghosts do the dirty work."
<Zeleny> "They deny her salt when she is the �only� one managing some kind of defense," Zeleny notes grimly. "She has done well to triumph over the base instincts that seem to invest these other rats."
<Sarasvati> "A pity that Sunset is still recovering. He could craft as much salt as needed."
<Zeleny> "Grab a few rats by the tails and shake them, and I suspect the salt will come pouring out."
<STonine> "She's not really the only one that's trying, but hers is the most successful in doing something lasting." Luccio says.
<Zeleny> "Who else?"
<STonine> "Rumours." Luccio grunts. "I've only heard that someone has organized a safe-zone in Wheel District North."
<STonine> "They stay out of our way, and we stay out of theirs. The Captain would probably know more."
<Zeleny> There's a low, mocking chuckle from some dark corner. All that's clearly visible are glowing yellow eyes. It stays there, perched, claws hanging low, waiting for something. There are scrabbling noises in the alleys. "Then if you're rested, lets go on and ask her."
<STonine> "Yeah..." Luccio looks warily around. "Good idea..."
<STonine> You head off again down the streets, taking turns at helping the wounded man travel with you. The moon has only travelled a short distance by the time you reach your destination.
<STonine> Luccio points, up ahead you can see an inert fountain in the center of a crossroads. There is a slight sound of movement, boots and clinking armour of soldiers. The scrape of steel against scabbards, the draw of arrow against bow.
<STonine> On the other side of the crossroads within your vision is a large whorehouse, its doors look to have been beaten and torn down and subsequently invaded by a presence far more vile than pirate sailors on shore leave with pockets heavy with silver.
<STonine> A bright blue light issues from around the corner and shoots across the crossroads, coiling and writhing through the air fluidly. It seems to pause for a moment, taking the slightest shape of a serpent before shooting inside the main foyer of the brothel.
<STonine> The energy detonates within, and every window on the first level explodes outwards in a flash of blue watery fire. A second later swarms of lanky grey shapes in tattered harlots silks leap through windows and doors and swarm onto the streets.
<STonine> Some roil and screech as the elemental energy sizzles dark pitted marks in their 'skins', others beat eachother down trying to escape the building and take revenge on their attacker.
<STonine> There is a sharp martial cry, and a storm of arrows, bolts, javelins and other projectiles rain into the swarm of specters, spearing, killing and weakening them for the killing that is to come.
<STonine> There is a second shout, then a unit of spear and swordsmen dressed in a similar uniform to Luccio charge forward and into the pack of ghosts. It is vaguely reminiscent of cavalry charging into poorly trained troops.
<STonine> The ghosts barely stand a chance as the fighting men and women cut them down like animals, screeching and howling is the only sound that matches the roars of battle and the ringing of steel.
<STonine> Seven soldiers gang up on a single large ghost, their blades passing harmlessly between one another, between any gap they can find. Under one soldiers arm, an over-handed swing that comes down and passes harmlessly by a sidestepping soldier.
<STonine> They dart in and out, taking turns swiftly at cutting the ghost to tattered ephemeral pieces, a seamless ballet of death.
<STonine> Then the soldiers charge into the brothel itself and clean out the inside, whilst a portion of them form a rear and perimeter guard.
<Verdant> "Impressive."
<STonine> One of the guards facing down the street the three exalts, fae and mortal are travelling out signals his archers to draw then shouts. "Halt! Identify!"
* Verdant shifts his rewrapped staff across his back. He looks at Zeleny for a moment, then shrugs. "I am called Verdant Waves. We met a soldier by the name of Luccio and seek to return him to his companions, and ask you some questions."
<STonine> The guard motions his men to relax. The four archers lower their bows. "You may approach!"
* Verdant chuckles as he walks forward. "My thanks, becoming a pincushion is not high on my to do list."
<Sarasvati> "Nor mine."
<STonine> The soldier looks over Luccio, then the pair of you. "Alright, come with me."
<STonine> He leads you to the main crossroads around the fountain. It is littered with soldiers, and teams of men wielding shortblades and hefting sacks of salt run past you and enter the brothel when the soldiers inside signal an all-clear.
<STonine> It is impossible to ignore the Dragonblood standing in the heart of the activity, her anima glowing slightly around her head like a watery halo from minor essence expendiature.
<Verdant> "Very efficient," Verdant comments as he effortless sidesteps his way out of the rushing salt-carriers.
<Verdant> *effortlessly
<STonine> She isn't expecially tall, though she seems to dwarf even the tallest of her warriors with mere presence alone. She takes reports from various men as they run to her. A mortal stands always at her side, it kind of reminds you of Zeleny and Salas Toad.
<STonine> She wears light armour of black and blue jade over black silks and wears a slender jade sword at her side. Black hair hangs over her face, not quite obscuring her eyes.
<STonine> This is doubtlessly Captain Rho, the leader of this strange resistance force against the ghosts. She crosses her arms over her breastplate and nods as her first officer comments to her on some tactical issue.
<STonine> The guard leading you breaks off and runs up to the dragonblood, saluting crisply in the manner of the Peleps marines and explains your presence to her. She nods and strolls over.
<STonine> When she closes you notice that her skin is pale and almost translucent, dark purple veins run under the skin of her cheeks... she looks sort of... bruised.
<STonine> "Captain Luccio." She says to the man held steady by Verdant Waves. "Are you well enough to give me a report?"
<STonine> "Yes ma'am." Luccio responds weakly, explaining the details of his mission, and how he and his small crew were attacked by ghosts, and how his relief team did not show.
* Verdant raises an eyebrow as he looks the dragonblood up and down, fighting against the urge to frown. Realm Terrestrial Exalted. Most likely a follower of the Immaculate Claptrap.
<STonine> "Rief and his men did not meet you on Low Cross?" She asks.
<STonine> "No ma'am. I expect that they were... set upon from the sewers - as we were." Luccio replies.
<STonine> "Should we send a unit after them Captain?" The man at Rho's side asks.
<STonine> The dragonblood thinks for only a moment. "No. They are as good as dead."
<STonine> "Aye." The man nods.
* Zeleny waits patiently, watching the captain and her...captain. Interesting. She might do. He releases Luccio after a moment, as the man tries to straighten up for his boss.
<STonine> "You." The dragonblood haughtilly adresses the guard that led you to her. "Get the good Captain Luccio some medical attention at once."
<STonine> The soldier stiffly obeys and helps Luccio over to a temporary medical unit nearby.
<STonine> "A FULL team Menzel." She turns to her first officer. "A FULL team, dead. I shall expect a full explanation as to why an idiot like Rief was placed in command of such a mission when we return to the compound."
<STonine> "Y-yes Captain." Menzel replies meekly.
<STonine> "Now then..." The dragonblood turns to the Solars and the fae. "My thanks for returning Luccio, he is a much valued member of my navy."
* Zeleny blinks at the preemptory tone. He glances sidelong at Verdant. He was beginning to feel somewhat like a marine himself, waiting for her to deign to notice them. Certainly a Dragonblooded.
<STonine> She looks down her nose at you 'mortals'. "I take it you'll want some sort of reward then?"
* Verdant internally decides he'd rather she have been a devout Immaculate.
* Sarasvati ponders if it would really count if she happened to accidently ravish this one.
<Zeleny> "He is a brave man. I am just pleased we were able to save him," Zeleny replies mildly enough, though with a certain frostiness of his own.
<STonine> The dragonblooded laughs haughtilly. "How amusing! I don't believe your claims of honest nobility for even an instant, however I commend your reaction."
* Zeleny smiles back at her, with a certain hint of teeth and a flash in his eyes. "I see why you are having such any easy forging the people of this backwater into a force to take back the city."
<STonine> "Yes they are at that." She nods with appreciation at the band of soldiers she has brought together. "I prefer to think that I am taking a more intelligent route than that imbecile Sarakhan."
<Zeleny> She had no ear for sarcasm. That was useful information."Oh? What did Sarakhan do?"
<Zeleny> "I have heard only good report of the man."
<STonine> "Oh he was good, dont get me wrong." She smirks. "The man built up quite a little empire running those docks for the larger ships - and of *course* being dragonblooded few could challenge him."
<STonine> "He died in the first night..." Rho laughs. "Said he would 'go deal with the Big Ghost personally'. As I hear it the Red Marauders still haven't found all the pieces."
<Zeleny> "I've heard of this big ghost before. What is it?"
<STonine> "Hard to say really... Black Flag holds a lot of buried secrets." The dragonblood shrugs. "What I *do* know is that you'd be positively insane to try and fight it with force alone - it was able to seperate an elder dragonblood into his component pieces with ease at any rate."
<Sarasvati> "Then it is a good thing I am not an elder dragonblood."
<Zeleny> "Indeed." He could still feel the hungry coldness of the thing's claws as it had flung him against the wall. It had shattered Sunset the next instant, and then....
<Zeleny> He would not believe she was dead.
<STonine> Despite her height difference in Sarasvati's favour, Rho is still able to look down her nose disdainfully at her. "Evidently."
<Zeleny> He forces another grimace of a smile to his face instead. "Perhaps you could tell us something of the situation here."
<STonine> "Historical lessons may wait at any rate. You likely already know that I am Peleps Aliset Rho - but I do not know you. If we would converse more I should like to know *whom* I speak to."
<STonine> (imagine she said 'to whom I speak' damn mental block)
<Zeleny> "I am Captain Zeleny. This is Verdant Waves, and Saravasti." He looks at her for a moment, seemingly a little amused by her hauteur, and suddenly a little of that arrogance is chipped. There is a force to the man that penetrates even a thousand years of inbred arrogance.
<STonine> The Dragonblood blinks once, then replies slowly. "Well met *Captain* Zeleny. And you likewise Verdant Waves and Sarasvati..."
<STonine> She leans over to Menzel and speaks a crisp order in High Realm.
<STonine> The man nods, and moves to the assembled troops. Within seconds they begin to withdraw calmly and precisely, watching all possible ambush points that ghosts would use and collecting all useful loot and equipment.
<STonine> "I am of course at your service - for a short time at least Captain." Rho smiles ingenuinely at Zeleny.
<Verdant> "At least until your troops have retreated, apparently."
<STonine> "We're done for the night." She glares at Verdant.
* Zeleny folds his arms across his chest, watching them withdraw. He could guess what was coming next. He shifts his stance a little, and gives her her own shark's smile back. "I am glad to hear that." The falsities of diplomacy observed, he says more seriously. "We have common interest here in saving Black Flag." He glances at Verdant briefly. "I trust we can put other animosities aside and work together to do so."
<STonine> "Animosity Captain? Why, I hardly understand your meaning." She replies, her scarlet eyes wide.
<Zeleny> "Forgive me. Our dealings with the Dyansty have not been unmixed."
<STonine> "Verdant Waves..." She addresses the twilight without taking her eyes off Zeleny.
<STonine> "Your Captain strikes me as one who does not respect the value of care and precision in a situation. Is that so?" She smiles slyly.
<STonine> "In fact... it seems to me that you are more the one to lead such an encounter... why aren't you?"
<STonine> "Perhaps he does not respect your ability as he should..."
* Verdant glares at the dragonblood. "And vice versa, I would suppose. Where do you seek with this line, soldier?"
<STonine> "An observation, little more..." Her smile fades a little.
* Zeleny stares back at Aliset Rho, lip curling. "We all have better things to do. What is your strategy for taking back the city?"
<STonine> "My plans are my own, Captain. I do not know you. [Would I truly share my intimate strategies with you, Anathema? You are a demon and will be treated as such!]" Rho replies
<Zeleny> "I think you do," says Zeleny, his face very hard. "If you would let any truth penetrate your Dragonblooded exterior, believe this: a city has fallen to the claws and fangs of evil, and though I do not know what villain set them loose up this city, or why, �I do intend to stop it�! Are you another petty gang-leader, a Lord of Knives or Soseh or Galdan that you look only to your own interests in such a crisis?"
<Verdant> "Zeleny." Verdant's voice is ice. "Let. Me. Handle. This."
<Verdant> "And you, Dragonblood. If you profess to respect my abilities so much..."
<Verdant> "Then face me. Single combat."
<STonine> "You must take me for a fool then." Rho hisses.
<Sarasvati> "I can't speak for them, but... ehhh, yes, more or less."
* Verdant chuckles. "Oh, hardly a fool, little Dragonblood." Verdant steps towards Rho. "Just a *coward*."
* Zeleny glances sidelong at Verdant, eyes narrowed. "Verdant..." he says in a low voice pitched for his ears alone, in a tone which means: 'What the hell are you doing?'
<STonine> The dragonblood backs up a step, hand on the hilt of her blade. "I wont let you take this city, demon..."
<Verdant> "Your words are born of ignorance, Terrestrial. I am no demon." Verdant chuckles. "Not that you'll listen, you <lost child>. ."
<Zeleny> "We don't want this city! We will happily leave it to you, in fact, for a few trifling conditions. Are we dogs, to squabble over a bone?" He takes a step towards the the Dragonblooded, drawing even with Verdant.
<Verdant> "Or have you forgotten? You've forgotten so much else. <So very much>." Verdant takes another step forward.
* Verdant sticks a hand in front of Zeleny. "Let me deal with it."
<STonine> "You released this plague, freed it from the Consortium Den's depths! If I am to die at least I will die pure!" She screams and with a puff of blue fire her sword leaps from its sheath and into her hand.
<STonine> "YOU were the ones who released it! Now that you've seen one with enough will to fight it you come for them! IS that it?! Is that it demon?!"
* Zeleny stares at the back of Verdant's head, not sure he knew that man. It was hard, very hard to trust. "Careful," he says under his breath. "Remember our purpose." And he waits.
<Verdant> "Hardly. Your words are born of ignorance, as I have said. But you won't listen, poor thing." Verdant looks at her sadly. "<Poor thing. You are lost.>"
<STonine> "Better lost, demon-found!" She throws back, voice wavering.
* Verdant slams the wrapped Glory's Halo into the wrecked stones of the street, jamming it upright. The action frees Verdant's arms to remove his cloak in a flourishing twirl that fails to hide the clicking noise underneath...or the unexpected clank the cloak makes as it hits the ground.
* Verdant rubs his bare forearms for a moment. Looking skyward, he removes an iron nail on a neckchain and tosses it on top of his cloak. Patting himself down, he seems to find another scrap of iron strapped to his left upper arm, and removes it as well.
* Zeleny is tense standing on the sidelines, twitching restlessly, like a chained tiger. �Remember she sent her men away. Remember what she has done for Black Flag.
<Verdant> "<Right, that's everything.>" Verdant looks at Rho as if just remembering she's there. "<Not that you'll believe me, dragonblood, but don't be so afraid>."
<STonine> Rho unbuckles her cloak and holds it out in her left hand whilst her right carries her sword. "Eager for Harmony's blade I see." She swallows. "Comforting."
* Sarasvati looks more nervously at the iron-mongery than the coming conflict.
<Verdant> "Harmony, Harmony..." Verdant says thoughtfully. "Sorry, haven't heard of it," Verdant says apologetically, grabbing the wrapped Glory's Halo.
<Zeleny> ��/me makes no preparations. But Inspiration of Men is warm weight on his forearms, and it grows hot as he watches the Exalted ready their weapons.
* Verdant bows to his opponent. A moment passes, and then Verdant dashes forward, and with him comes Glory's Halo...
<STonine> Rho flips part of the cloak onto her shoulder and lets the staff come down upon the heavy pauldrons of her jade armour.
<STonine> The blows nearly bring the dragonblood to her knees, and she coughs up blood almost as black as the ocean depths, and yet is on her feet in an instant, fanning the cloak out before her in a dizzying swirld of black and cerulean fabric from which her sword lashes out striking from depths of oceanic fabric at the twilight.
<STonine> All about her watery essence explodes into being, leaving trails behind her feet as she darts in and around the Solar
<STonine> She rises from her low combat stance, holding the cloak aloft, a bitter scowl on her face as the energy fades from her slender dueling blade. "You are a slippery one..."
<Verdant> But the Twilight proves too fast to be struck, althrough a loose end of a belt is abruptly shortened by Rho's second swing.
<STonine> The Dragonblood abruptly turns and runs at impressive speed, trailing footprints of bubbling blue fire on the ground. She swirls the cloak about her in a winding corkscrew then leaps high into the air, the cloak stretching to a ribon of night.
<STonine> She sommersaults and lands on the distant spire of the fountain.
<STonine> Then out of the darkness almost unseen comes the sword, Harmony, spinning through the air towards the twilight with only a slight trail of blue-tinted essence leashing it to its exalted owner.
* Verdant dodges with a smirk that vanishes in a grunt of pain as he feels cold steel graze his left upper arm.
<STonine> The whirling blade disappears into the spinning cloak with a sound not unlike the splash of a fish into water.
<Verdant> "My compliments," Verdant says, stopping the bloodflow with a thought. "But I know how to deal with acrobats." And with that he raises his arm as his caste mark ignites upon his brow. A circle of runes forms around his right arm, the arm that points at Rho.
<STonine> You catch a slight smile of purple lips amongs the relentlessly whirling cloak in her hands.
<Verdant> "<...and entangle my enemy in the SPROUTING SHACKLES OF DOOM!>" Verdant intones, as the runes launch themselves after Rho, becoming trails of Essence as they fly...
<Verdant> ... the trails form a cage around Rho, which tightens, getting less and less ephemeral and more and more...material as it does so...
<STonine> With nothing more she can do Rho leaps directly upwards, bouyed on burning water essence in an effort to escape certain capture and consumtion by the Anathema. Even as she leaps the tendrils arc up and beging to pull at her armour, feet, boots, cloak - anything the magical vines can grasp.
<STonine> "AAAAHHH!" The scream is one of pure terror as the vines wrap into a cocoon around the airborne Dragonblooded warrior. With nothing to hold them up, the 'package' drops into the fountain, sending up a plume of lichiny water that rains down even on the distant Verdant.
* Zeleny turns to Verdant. "Why did you do that?" he asks quietly, his eyes dark.
* Verdant attempts to instinctively raise his cloak against the sudden rain, only to be distracted by the reminder that he left it on the stones. Shaking the errant droplets off his face, Verdant rushes to Rho, reaching in and dragging her free of the water.
<Verdant> "So, I presume I have your undivided attention?"
<STonine> The dragonblooded's anima fades away, the last vestiges of elemental power lash against your cheek like sharp sea spray. The's barely concious, but there is enough sense in her to have defiance in her eyes.
* Zeleny had watched the spectacle from the sidelines, as Verdant battled the drained Captain Rho, turning her blows aside as his battered her. He watched him drag her from the water, and he watched him with her now.
<Zeleny> He did not look pleased.
<STonine> {Go... to...Malfeas....} She mutters weakly in her native tongue.
<Zeleny> "Verdant, may I speak to you a moment?" Zeleny asks with an edge to his voice.
<Verdant> "Little busy," Verdant replies curtly.
<Verdant> "<Do you understand me?>" Verdant asks Rho.
<STonine> "Just....end it....already...." She moans in Seatongue
* Verdant sighs. "You've forgotten so much, child of a fallen Dynasty. And as I told you, you speak from ignorance."
<Verdant> With a touch Verdant stills the vines so they no longer seek to crush her. "Why are you so eager to die?"
<STonine> "Stop...stop forcing me... to... endure the shame... of my defeat...." She groans.
<Verdant> "Endure the shame?" Verdant pulls on the vines, dragging her face to his so she can see the fire in his eyes. "I have endured defeat, Captain Rho. Tell me, how well do you remember your past? Your childhood? What you had for dinner a month ago today?"
<STonine> "If you want me to apologise to you, you disgusting Unclean monster..." She grins, teeth stained with dark blood. "You'll be waiting a very long, cursed time."
* Verdant sighs. Immaculate Claptrap after all.
<Verdant> "Well then, while we're waiting, why did you send your troops away?"
<STonine> "To save them. From you." She closes her eyes bitterly.
<Zeleny> Zeleny watches, eyes dark. "They did not need saving," he says, eyes fixed on Verdant.
<Verdant> "You were trying to trade yourself for them? Why?"
<Verdant> "However accurate your words may be, Zeleny, I can handle myself." Verdant snaps.
<STonine> "I don't expect you to understand our hearts. And trying to worm your way into mine is futile. You'll just have to kill me." She closes her eyes against the harsh light of the Twilight's castemark
<Verdant> "Humor me, dragonblood Rho," Verdant says sracastically. "Your answer is rather important."
<STonine> "I'll give you nothing more. Go on. Kill me. My men would rather die than become your slaves." She says triumphantly (and stubbornly)
* Zeleny 's glare bores into Verdant's back.
<Zeleny> "Are you done?" he asks, coldly enough to freeze a lake.
<Verdant> "Damnit Zeleny, I've gone along with more than enough of your crazed schemes for you to cut me some bloody slack!" Verdant growls. He turns back to Rho. "And will you quit being so eager to die damnit! And I don't want to 'enslave' you, your men, this city...nothing! We came here first because the pirates here were terrorizing nearby villages and, now here's a shocker, taking slaves."
<Verdant> "And then we returned because we found a ship whose only living crewman was maddened by all the hungry ghosts on the ship. Poor man was raving about death coming to Black Flag."
<STonine> "I see it before me." Rho snarls.
<Verdant> "And so we arrive. Thanks to us, and to my abilities, your soldier, Luccio, yet lives."
<Verdant> "It's whether I see my death before me that matters right now." Verdant says, deadly serious.
<STonine> "I have no way of knowing that you do not lie, demon!" Rho hisses. "How long before you turn? A year? A day? An instant?"
<Verdant> "There are two possibilities before me. One, I am right, you are wrong, and I am no demon. I certainly hope for that to be true."
<Verdant> "The other is that you are right, and I am wrong. And every scrap of compassion I feel is only going to slip through my fingers. And that's why I ask you these questions."
<Verdant> "Because if you are right...then it is only a matter of time before I become a threat to everything I hold dear. If that day comes, dragonblood, I need someone who can do the real me a final favor."
<Verdant> "The real me, the one that's here, now." Verdant gestures, and the vines disappear. "I believe I am right, but I know too much about why your ancestors did what they did...more than anyone else here."
<Verdant> "Why did I fight you? Because I thought you were trying to ambush us, among other things." Verdant peeks inside the wrapping of his staff.
<STonine> "You talk of the present as if it is the future." Rho retorts, barely able to move despite being freed from the shackles. "Don't let your supposed 'compassion' stay your hand. I look forward to taking my revenge upon you as a ghost."
<Verdant> "That would be difficult, dragonblood. To take revenge as a ghost requires that you die."
<STonine> "I wont be a slave!"
<Zeleny> "You won't be. Shall we take her back to her army, now?" Zeleny asks, scorn dripping from every word.
<Verdant> "Also true."
<Verdant> "There's hardly a need to use that tone with me."
* Zeleny walks over to the defeated Dragonblooded, leans down, and props her up. She can't stand, not truly, but he helps her assume a fair pretense. His touch is surprisingly gentle. "Indeed," he agrees, as Rho turns to glare at him. "Shall we?"
<STonine> "Dont... dont touch me..." She mutters balefully. "I said dont!"
<Zeleny> "You can't walk, and the you'd be easy prey for the ghosts if we left you behind. Endure my touch a little while."
<STonine> "I would rather be left behind. Give me that at least!" She sneers at Zeleny.
<Zeleny> "Where are your men?" he asks, ignoring her expression.
<STonine> "Humiliation as well? Is that it?" The dragonblood ignores the question.
<STonine> She tries to push Zeleny away.
<Verdant> "Something like that. Today you faced an Anathema, and the only thing that saves you in the end is that you were righteous, if misguided." Noticing the Dragonblood stumble, Verdant positions himself under her arm that is away from Zeleny.
<STonine> "Dont! Dont you dare!" She nearly screams. "Why are you doing this to me?!"
<Zeleny> "Verdant has already taken care of that," Zeleny replies acidly. "If you would safeguard your men, turn the tide of the battle, and rid this port of ghosts and Anathema alike...then stop being foolish, and accept my help." He ignores Verdant. "Do not die for pride."
<Verdant> "What choice do I have? You have been fed lies since you were born, as far as I'm concerned. If you know how to counter brainwashing like that in a less uncomfortable way, do illuminate me."
<Zeleny> "Please," he says softly. He locks eyes with Verdant. "Perhaps you had better step away," he says, still soft.
<Zeleny> But it was a different kind of softness.
<Verdant> "You're going to need help to walk," Verdant says, crossing his arms and shooting a glare at Zeleny. "You can take mine or his."
<STonine> "Back off!" She growls at both of the Solars.
* Verdant sighs. "No matter how much you claim to want me to, sorry, but I am *not* going to leave you here for the ghosts."
<STonine> "I'm not going back like this, battered and humiliated by you Anathema! I wont! I swear by Daana'd that I will NOT! You've beaten me once, you shall not do so again!"
<STonine> She manages to push Zeleny off, but succeeds only in falling quickly to the ground in a heap of jade.
<STonine> "Have... to..." She rolls onto her stomach and sees her jade sword almost ten feet away.
* Zeleny looks down at the battered, defiant, Dragonblooded. She wanted to die now, he sees. Die in this horrid place of rain and death and shadows, where rats squeaked atop the fountain and monsters huddled in the alleyways. "You are strong," he tells her, willing her to believe.
<Zeleny> There is precious little light in this city, where even the light of the moon is covered , but he forces her to look at him. Staring up at him, it seems there is a gold cast to his face. "Strong enough to deal with this. This has not changed you. You will live, for your men and for Creation."
<Zeleny> There is a quality to his voice which will not be denied. A certainty. It is as if he has stripped away some part of her soul and laid it bare, and then polished it until it shone.
<Zeleny> He leans down. "Now. Take my hand," he says, offering it to him.
<Zeleny> The Anathema's hand.
<Zeleny> Or the sword.
<STonine> Trembling, her gauntleted hand takes his, closing on the Zenith's rather than the hilt of her jade sword.
<STonine> Her face is not the mask of joy that Zeleny had seen countless times from mortals, but the defiance, hatred and defeat has fled.
<STonine> "Water." She says weakly.
<Zeleny> He closes his fingers around hers, and offers her his canteen.
<STonine> She shakes her head. "Immerse me..."
<Zeleny> He nods in sudden understanding, and carries her over to the fountain. He wrinkles his nose at the befouled water, but with another glance at her, he lowers her gently into the fountain.
<Verdant> "Err...I was rather intending for her NOT to drow...oh."
<Zeleny> He steps away then, a little tension leaving him. He lowers his head, watching her face beneath the clouded water. He keeps his back turned, his face hidden. "Verdant...what were you doing?" he asks in a voice hardly above a whisper.
<STonine> She floats for but a moment, then sinks deeply into the water, curling into a ball. The entire pool is suddenly a-glow with turquoise light, as if the water itself were liquid illumination. Rho's body at its heart remains black and inert, like a foetus in the womb.
<Zeleny> A rat at his elbow squeaks.
<Verdant> "Trying to put some sense into her, among other things."
<Zeleny> "How? By humiliating her? By stripping her down, and beating her?"
<Verdant> "Zeleny, she's grown up on lies about us. As I said to her, if you know a more comfortable means of dealing with that kind of brainwashing, do share."
<Zeleny> "She was arrogant, yes. She is a Dragonblooded. But she has preserved the only sense of order and deceny left in this cesspit of a town. We might have been allies. THAT is how you combat lies. With truth and shared purposes."
<Zeleny> His shoulders move with his deep breathing.
<Zeleny> "And you treated her as though she were..." For a moment, he can't finish. "Sun above, Verdant!" Zeleny roars, whirling at last. Tears have smudged the dirt on his face. "You spoke to her as though she were a slave!"
<Verdant> "I fail to see how that is true. And she would not have given in to 'shared purposes', Zeleny. You saw how she reacted to our names."
<Zeleny> "You speak as though truth is a bauble you carry with you in your pocket. She sent her men away. You never even gave her a chance. Of course she was suspicion. Who would not be?"
<Verdant> "Zeleny, *you* of all people have no room to accuse me of acting rashly."
<Zeleny> "That is true," Zeleny is forced to agree. He looks down at his hands. "But I have witnessed the breaking of slaves," Zeleny says at least, evenly. "And I thought...I thought that is what I saw today. If I have misjudged you, I am sorry." He doesn't sound very sorry though. "But...Verdant, tell me. Please, tell me that no part of your duel with her was an attempt to break the seal. Tell me you did not use her that way. "
<Verdant> "I did the same as you did when the Wyld Hunt attacked us in Valence."
<Verdant> "I will not lie, Zeleny. And thus I cannot give you what you ask."
<Zeleny> "I understand," says Zeleny finally. "But we were attacked then. Please....please, don't do that again."
<Verdant> "Do what, Zeleny?"
<Verdant> "You don't understand what I was talking about when I asked her what she had for dinner a month ago today."
* Verdant steps towards Zeleny. "I remember everything since my Exaltation. Everything I have seen and heard, whether I want to or not."
* Zeleny stays still, watching. "So?"
<Verdant> "The look on your face at Lao's when you first saw what I could do. Every member of the Brilliance who you've had to send to the Sun. The face of every sleeping slave in that temple."
<Verdant> "Don't act like you can punish me more than my dreams do. I am prepared for restless nights if that strength will save. One. Life."
<Verdant> "And Luccio is the proof that I can. That it can. Though it may terrify me."
* Zeleny nods slowly, looking down at his hand. They are rough and spotted with blood. �Every sleeping slave in that temple..�. His own sin. "Then remember also...a soul is not a thing to crush in your hand. Though you have the strength. There are things you do not have the right to take. It was not to kill us that she reached for her sword, there at the end."
<Zeleny> "And this," he raises a hand to encompass the whole macabre scene, the low-hanging moon over the gritty, dead streets and whispering monsters. "This is not a mathematical calculation."
<Zeleny> It was strange: until Verdant reminded him, he had almost forgotten how he'd feared the Twilight's sorcery. He did not think he would forget again soon. "It is not enough merely to live."
<Verdant> "Not a concrete calculation, I'll give you that. And I'll point out that it was my sight that allowed any of us to reach Luccio in time. Would that it allowed us to arrive sooner."
<Zeleny> "I know."

---

<diamond> Diamond flits from roof top to roof top, her long body flitting out behind her, her rat ahead turning his way and that, listening. Her ears are superhumanly keen, but therer is little to hear this evening, until finally the sound of an argument flits towards her
<Diamond> She turns to it. If her Lidara wouldn't give her answers, maybe Zeleny would. Or would at least be less smug about it.
She alights a few yards away from the Solars.
<Diamond> "Captain" All nine feet of rat salute.
* Zeleny starts, whirling away.
<Zeleny> And gapes.
<Zeleny> For a moment, he looks an utter fool, standing there with his mouth open....then he manages to close it, swallows hard, and comes up with a credible response. "Virtuous Diamond. It has been some time," he says, as evenly as if she'd appeared for a dinner party.
<Diamond> Diamond grins. "I was surprised to see you too."
<Diamond> "And its Victorious - most days."
<Zeleny> He looks at a rat still perched on the fountain ledge. It looked back, is whiskers twitching. He looks at Victorious Diamond again. "You've been ...around?" He scrounges up a smile from somewhere, and bows.
<Diamond> The rat bows to the Lunar, and then scurries off to feast. <Diamond> "Ah, where are my manners?" she curtesies, ludicrously. Since when did Zeleny start bowing?
<Zeleny> "Where have you been?" Zeleny asks bluntly.
<Diamond> "You disturbed my home under the seas a few days ago, then ran off before I had a chance to pay my greetings."
<Diamond> "A palace you built, with my son and your old self."
<Diamond> "Although I did have a chance to meet Pyhrra."
* Zeleny nods, slowly, almost as if it had been the answer he was expecting. His head jerks up. "You saw Pyhrra? She was well?" he asks, as if he desperately needed to know.
<Diamond> "Yes. I gave her a key to take her up the stairs more quickly. She wanted to find Parn." she softens her voice a bit "She was very sorry to leave you.." pronounced - her lover.
<Diamond> She guages his reaction
* Zeleny 's face goes still, and for a moment, he doesn't speak. A bewildering spiral of emotion runs through his face, too quickly to be identified. "She's alive, then." He says. And then in an odd voice, "Still chasing her brother."
<Zeleny> �Abandoned again�. But Pyhrra was always leaving. "I - thank you for bringing word. I was concerned."
<Diamond> "Not at all" so her suspicons were accurate. It was the Dawn, this time.
<Diamond> "Unforunately, a Deathknight followed you down. He stole something from the palace, and broke the salt barrier on his way back up, allowing thousands of hungry ghosts to roam free."
* Zeleny jerks his head up and down in a restless nod. He glances over at Verdant's retreating back. If he were pleased to hear of Pyhrra's fate, he gave no sign. Of course, he was rather far away; it was possible he hadn't heard. He runs his hand through hair in a short, sharp gesture.
<Diamond> "I suppose you've seen"
<Zeleny> He closes his eyes briefly. "Yes. So that's how they got free. The slaves...do any live?"
<Diamond> "The Shadow spared a few, although I'm not sure the wretched thing knew why. I think your nature is affecting him, somehow."
<Diamond> "A few more hid under other dead bodies. I took them to a haven I've organized"
<Diamond> "But morale is sagging, and if it rains again, we won't be able to replace the salt."
* Zeleny nods. A rare true smile touches his lips. "In the north, I suppose. I'm glad some survived." He had been so near to saving them.... "What did the Deathknight take? Is he still in the city?"
<Zeleny> He shakes his head. "The shadow can have naught to do with me," he says softly, just to himself. Surely his soul was not so black.
<Diamond> "No, if he were even a mortal could smell his rotten flesh"
<Diamond> "The Deathknight took "your heart". He said you had a plan to use it to make a perfect world, once"
<Zeleny> "My heart," Zeleny echoes, not quite believing it.
<Diamond> "I don't know what he meant." although you know someone who does! a little voice in the back of her head popped up
* Zeleny looks at his chest. His heart seemed intact. He couldn't mean...no. That was ridiculous. "An artifact?" he asks cautiously. "Some creation of ...of the one who came before me?"
<Zeleny> He remembered the temple.
<Zeleny> He remembered Augustine.
<Zeleny> �Who was it who fed me, Zenith?
<Zeleny> He wouldn't identify himself with that. Not directly.
* Diamond motions to the pool
<Diamond> "I see you meet the local Dynasts"
<Zeleny> "Yes. She had Verdant had a tussle," he says expressionlessly.
<Diamond> "Verdant?"
<Diamond> "Verdant tussled?"
<Zeleny> "He sought the fight. She...she had no choice but to give it to him."
<Diamond> "Why would Verdant...ok."
<Diamond> "Did she say something nice to Sarasvati?" she says incredulously
<Zeleny> "He wanted to break a seal. And...he wanted to humble her." Zeleny sits down beside the rat on the fountain ledge, and it sniffs his figures curiously. He looks into the water, and waits.
* Diamond what does he smell like? Diamond silently asks the rat.
<STonine> The waters of the disused fountain have slowly begun to steam whilst the Zenith and Lunar spoke.
<Zeleny> Blood. He smells like blood.
* Blood the rat replies
<STonine> Soon the waters begin to churn as the spent peripheral essence that the dragonblood had dispersed into the waters returned to her anima, leeching the cool luminosity of the pool, draining it back into a mildly burning corona about her body.
<STonine> The waters grow dark, and Aliset Rho stands up, her hair matted down over her head and face - and her battered body almost completely healed.
<STonine> Even the perculiar veiny bruising on her visible skin she bore before has faded leaving creamy pale skin in its place.
<Diamond> And blood floats in the edge of the pool, and blood is on the Sorceror's staff, and blood was on Sarasvati's spear, and blood was on Diamond's mind as she wondered what would become of this shattered world
<Diamond> But what would a rat want of gold? Diamond thinks, as her companion scurries off