Meeting of Importance and Sanctuary

[AramusWulf]

((Gonna give this a small whirl because I'm still learning so here goes. Any style either party needs as a result will be discussed when available.))
((This is a "private" conversation between Caliban Ru and Tyv Adrente with Kyenin Steele in attendance.))

Kyenin Steele sits in a dark corner of an upper balcony of Caliban Ru's parlor swathed in shadows. He awaits the arrival of Tyv Adrente. As all good Spymasters do, he waits in the darkness for his missions to come to him. Tyv Adrente is on the run and has come to the Marquis for assistance. So Kyenin Steele waits like the predator, the vulture he is. He awaits the moment to strike and fulfill the contract he has promised to honor from Aban Steele. Tyv Adrente will suffer, as no man has suffered before him.

[Nihilistic Mind]

((moved it to Blood & Tears; also, a couple of things, when is this scene taking place? Before or after the last party? In my mind, Calaban would have been Tyv's first stop after the murder of Aban Steele's wife, which is reflected in the following post. If you have something else in mind for this scene, just let me know and I'll change my post. ))

Baron Tyv Adrente rides alone, his coat open and loose, blood and guts flowing freely onto his mare who continues to gallop, unhindered. He rides into the main courtyard of Calaban's palace and up the stairs to the main hall, pushing servants aside as he makes his way up. He stops before stepping on Calaban's newest carpets and bleeds on the smoothed stone of the palace's entrance instead.

"CALABAN! It is TYV ADRENTE! I ask for your Hospitality on this dreadful, black day, if you will grant it!"

[wunderworks]

Veth comes forth with towels, new rugs, clothes, a table, and food. They motion for him to sit down, and change his clothes and clean him while feeding him grapes, cheese, and bread. Calaban's senechal comes from behind a great rose stone pillar and asks, "What is it that you disturb our lord and master with? Especially in this state? He is busy after all."

[AramusWulf]

Kyenin watched from the alcove balcony amusedly. It appeared Tyv Adrente had suffered much already judging from his insistant attitude and all the blood around the entryway. He waited while the seneschal and the veth attended to the Lord, wanting to hear the answer to that very same question.

[Loqua]

((Style Spend to Ben: Tyv's yelling brings Iratu awake and he is amongst the veth that greet Tyv. I will add a true post if this goes through.))

[Nihilistic Mind]

Tyv allows himself to be unclothed, fed and cleaned and sets his sword aside. He has no qualms about his own nakedness and vulnerability is nowhere near the range of feelings Tyv Adrente has when the Seneschal begins speaking.

When he is done speaking, Tyv nearly growls at Calaban's Seneschal. He hesitates for a moment, looking at Calaban's 'well-trained servant', anger and hatred flashing wickedly in the Rajan's eyes.

Tyv says through gritted teeth, "Since minding his Artisan's fine rugs isn't enough, let me make this important enough for Calaban himself to answer when I call him by name."

With a swift movement of his arm, gritting his teeth through the pain of his own wounds, Tyv plunges his sword into the Seneschal's torso. The sheath is leaning against the table, unmoved.
Holding his sword there and twisting it slightly, Tyv says "You need to learn your place among the ven, dirt. Although you may be a Marquis' dirt, the law supports the weight of my actions upon you... and I want this to serve as a reminder to your peers, not to teach you a lesson." With those last words whispered, he slices down, spilling the entirety of the Seneschal's entrails onto the stone floor.

Finally, he turns to a servant girl who was cleaning the gaping wound at his side a moment ago. "Make sure Calaban Ru is here soon after I am clothed again."

(Spent a Style Point to kill a veth, which goes to Calaban. Ben said Iratu can be there.)

[wunderworks]

((Style Spend to Ben: Tyv's yelling brings Iratu awake and he is amongst the veth that greet Tyv. I will add a true post if this goes through.))

(Spent a Style Point to kill a veth, which goes to Calaban. Ben said Iratu can be there.)

Style accepted from both of you.

[wunderworks]

Long silent moments pass through the hall. The usual quiet whispers of the veth have all disappeared at the death of their Senechal. The young lady attending Tyv's wounds scurries off. Long minutes pass and only the sounds of Tyv eating, drinking and dripping his blood onto the floor can be heard.

Finally, the young veth returns and finishes attending to his wound, and with the last wrap of bandage Calaban Ru walks into the hall and sits down at a place prepared for him. He is followed by sixty guards dressed all in black robes wearing only the badge of Calaban Ru. They quietly line the walls of the hallway. Each alternating man carries a crossed bow while his partner carries a barbed spears.

"Tyv," Calaban sighs. "Why have you created problems for me when all I've done is offer you sanctuary and gifts?" Tyv begins to speak around the food in his mouth....

"SILENCE!" roars Calaban, his face contorted and purpled. Every bow and spear lowers and points towards Tyv's gut. "You have murdered the wife of one of my Counts and you have murdered my most valuable Senechal, veth though he might be! I should string your bones together as jewelry for my cousins, and offer your eyes as desert for my dinner! YOU FOUL FOOL! What use are you? You lack courage, and wisdom, or you'd have fallen on your on blade instead of running to me. Your lack of manners shows your lack of understanding of what is beautiful in this world, and one must question your prowess when you, likeanidiot, try and murder one of my counts, but fail and kill his frail wife instead! Only your strength and cunning are without doubt as you so easily prove it with your casual ending of the lives of my valuable retainers." Calaban collapses back into his seat, wiping his napkin across his face.

Silence reigns again in Calaban's Hall. Then as he begins to speak again the sixty guards take five steps forward and all about the edges of Calaban's Hall servants begin to throw ropes up and over the tops of the arches.
"Since you are of no use to me except as a mindless killer I shall have you perform one more service for me. You have cost me much blood, now and in the future, I shall have you repay me in kind." More guards and servants enter the hall and this time each pair of guards has a man stripped, bound and hooded struggling between him. Each servant places a large glazed jar that would appear to hold about eight pints before each bound man.

Calaban waves his arm around the hall and the guards remove the hoods as if on cue. "These are your road men, Tyv. Each and every man hand selected by you to serve you. They are rough, they are able, and they were yours. But no longer. You have caused me nothing but unending problems, and if I am to solve your problems, you will give me, willingly, their blood." Calaban glances at the first guard who nods and the road men are each raised into the air, bound by their ankles. Their hands held to the side by each guard and their heads pulled back, exposing their throats to the pale mouths of each jar.

In Calaban's hand is a wicked curved dagger. "Do this Tyv, and I shall be appeased. Fail this, and my cousins will be wearing your finger bones as necklaces, for," and he glances at the archers, "Your skin will be of no use to them."

[Loqua]

The party. The Guests. Her. Her again.

"..this to serve as a reminder to your peers, not to teach you a lesson." Death.

That last part wouldn't leave Iratu's mind.

"Tyv, sending a message to me? Disturbing, but unlikely. He has far too much on his plate. Although, Tyv isn't welcome here for his intellectual Prowess." he thought to himself.

Iratu remained passively in the corner of the Hall, watching the yelling and the display of blood.

Calaban. Your sanity is leaving you. A blood sacrafice? Of your own infrastructure?

Plans must be hurried. Iratu didn't expect this. Tyv alive.

Iratu watched and waited.

[Nihilistic Mind]

Tyv looks confused and angry as Calaban silences him.
With every sentence and Insult that he throws at him, Tyv cringes and he only gets angrier.

"Calaban Ru... You have brought this upon yourself, in more ways than one. I know what game you are playing. I know the rules and I know the pieces. If anything, you should think me driven rather than foolish."

Tyv sits down and continues to eat, after a couple of bites and an audible 'gulp', he looks at his men, then back at Calaban. "You know all of us too well not to have orchestrated every single pawn's move to achieve your goals. You have overseen the contracts. You knew my Count, Thavren Thorne, could not deliver a wife in time not to be branded a Traitor and null the contract that supports your title of Marquis. You knew it would be advantageous for Count Aban Steele's wife Anibella to find a wife for me instead and gain the upper hand, a favor owed by Count Thavren Thorne if she fulfilled her plan. You also knew of Count Aban Steele's recent attempt on his life by his own Brother, and you KNEW HE WOULD THINK HIS OWN WIFE WAS BEHIND IT!"

Tyv coughs up blood and spits into a brass bowl at his feet where some of his blood has been collected by one of Calaban's servants. He drinks the water Calaban's staff offered him and continues his tirade.

"Out of all of your Vassals, I know you most. Except perhaps for your Apothecary," he says without looking at Iratu. "I know that you would expect Anibella to be under Aban's close surveillance, and that he would not refuse a duel with me. I have read the contracts and the clauses, Calaban. I KNOW what you have orchestrated..."

More coughing. More blood.

"But you know why I went there anyway? To soothe my relationship with your oh-so-important Elk Count via his wife and her arranging my marriage on behalf of Count Thavren? I think not. I went there because I knew Aban would be there. I endured his wife's hospitality through gritted teeth, and while I am certain she saw what transpired foremost in my mind, she still played her part as well. I am no actor. I am sure she saw through my carefully polite behavior. Why she endured my company and played her part, I did not care to find out. I assumed she really did want her husband dead. Why wouldn't she, after all. Now, I realize that if she had that in mind, she must have changed it at the very last instant that she could."

"You are not upset because I am difficult to deal with, Calaban. You are not mad at me because I have made your relationship with your Count uneasy or even because I attempted to murder him, for that matter. You are upset because we are both still alive, Calaban!"

"How DARE you treat me like a problem, when I continually play my part in your underlying schemes! When I allow you to manipulate my actions so freely! When I follow every prompt, every suggestion and when I turn an eye away from your Sorcerous acts in order to continue to serve you... As a Rajan, I should have put an end to you. As your Master of the Roads, I have served you completely, ensuring your lands are safe and prosperous while weakening Count Steele's own regions and giving you a constant upper hand in trade. Yes, I know that you know about that. How could you not anticipate it!?"

"I served my purpose, played my part in your machinations, Calaban. Freely. Willingly. Knowingly."

Tyv pauses to drink more water.

"And now, do you know what I am going to do for you? I will continue to play my part. I am your most trustworthy Vassal, for my every move can be anticipated due to my direct approach in every matter." He walks up to his veteran and favorite roadman, kills him and moves on to the next. "I asked nothing of you but Hospitality in your home, you damn asp!" He kills another and another.

"I want nothing but to serve and you repay me with FUCKING INSULTS?!?" He kills more and more of them. His frenzy is almost unleashed.

"How dare you? How could you?!" Five more in one strike. "You use me to your ends and I let you do this, and the one day I actually ask something of you resembling a favor, before I have so much of a chance to ask for anything, you spit out your false views about my mediocrity?!"

He moves so quickly now that Tyv Adrente becomes a blur of blood and violence never seen within these walls before. In spite of his rage, every cut, every stab, every spillage of blood, is done with complete control and intent. It is clear that Tyv has at last mastered the frenzied arts of his school. Then what circumstances could have brought such a blatant mistake on his part at his duel with Aban Steele?

When there is a dozen left, Tyv stays his blade at the throat of one of his roadmen. "Tell me, Calaban. Why do you keep me alive if I am always causing you more trouble than I am worth? Is it not because I am really no trouble at all, and because my understanding of your machinations are spot on?"