Meeting of Importance and Sanctuary

[wunderworks]

Watches silently as Tyv lets the blood of each of his men, then arches an eyebrow at the last question. He smiles with his lips and says, "No, I keep you alive because, as you say, you. play. your. part."

He looks back at his dinner plate and pushes it away. "I am sorry to hear that you believe me some sort of sorcerer. Beryll will think that very insulting, and I doubt that my closest friend, my ally and vassal who has always performed perfectly for me would enjoy hearing your baseless false accusations. After all, was it not I who helped her to kill the very women who blooded us? The sorceresses who's foul magic blessed and cursed Beryll and I to forever be blooded?"

He tilts his head and considers his finger nails, "No. I don't think she would." Looking back at Tyv he asks, "Are you quite finished? I have other business to arrange and Elks, who act like Wolves, to calm. Be rest assured, that the only authority you will face will be from Jonan Drax, for even I cannot shield one of his Rajan from the fury of the smallest man in Shanri." He smiles, as if he enjoys that insult, and adds, "Oh, and if you ever touch one of my veth again, not even Jonan Drax will be able to find the hairs on your head."

[Loqua]

He almost did it. Called to Shan'ri to give strength to the open flames coming from the candles on the dinner table. To caramelize Tyv's bones in their own marrow. Disgust. Hate. Anger. Tyv was the most vile one of all. Given the duty of stopping sorcery and he sells his honor cheap to lap up the chunks fallen from Calaban's insatiable maw of power. Pathetic.

The candles did burn a little hotter.

No. It wasn't time yet.

He turns his back to the slaughter of the men. Wincing as the new whispers join the the low chorus that is always with him. They whisper of hope and not hate. They whisper of what they had lost and not what they wanted. Then they lost their own voice and joined in with the rest. Another rake across the strings of the Other World.

Such Ignorance. Remaining blind to any world but their own, to the machinations of their own Suaven.

He remained watching and listening, becoming nothing more than another decoration in the room.

((I know I am not adding much right now, but with all the death Iratu isn't compelled to speak. ))

[AramusWulf]

Kyenin smiles yet again from the shadows, watching while Tyv Adrente is first cleansed and washed and even while the Seneschal is killed. Not murdered, because it is only a veth. He watches while Tyv is given every hospitality. Clothed and sated to help him in the difficult times ahead when he will face Calaban Ru and his formidable prescence.

Kyenin watches as Calaban approaches and orders him to slay the men. Sorrow and suffering. "Calaban is doing my work for me. How delicious," he mutters to the darkness, "He'll make sure Tyv Adrente is nothing more than a husk by the time this is done. He will welcome the death Aban Steele wishes for him."

Kyenin passes thru dark passages on slippered feet around the manor while Tyv Adrente slaughters the once loyal roadmen to get the best angle for the finale of this show.

Very soon Tyv Adrente will know what true suffering is all about.

[Nihilistic Mind]

"Very well," Tyv says, red with anger and from the blood of the veth. "I will finish these twelve, as you originally commanded, and I will retract my mistaken accusations about the illegal Path of Blood that is Sorcery... I will continue to play my part in your schemes. You have taken my title of Master of the Roads from me, so be it... Let Aban's lands recover. But now you will offer me sanctuary and Hospitality so long as I remain in your Domain. I can still damage any of your enemies, and most importantly, all of your friends. Those who have not betrayed you yet are moving pawns of their own and using me is still essential to your plans."

"As for my relationship with Jonan Drax, do not presume to know or understand what the Suaven's whispers to me are, have been or will be."

Tyv kills his remaining roadmen. "Say it, Calaban. Offer me your Hospitality, as etiquette would require. I will retire to a part of your palace where I will not disturb you or your operations, where your spy master can keep an eye on me at all times, and where veth will be safe, for I will kill no more. This roadman was the last one, veth or ven, to lose life by my hand. I swear it on the Laws of the Ven Senate and Jonan Drax himself!"

[wunderworks]

His face blank Calaban says, "Tyv Adrente, I offer you Hospitality here in my home and everywhere within the lands I control as a Marquis. I ask that you touch not a single veth that works for me, but I give you free reign to defend yourself from all ven who wouldst murder thee, or do the any harm, bodily or with Insult. Go forth and recover from your injuries, great and small. I shall have need of you soon, my most loyal of vassals."

[Nihilistic Mind]

Satisfied at last, though mindful of Calaban's wording about veth and ven, Tyv is silent as he bows low, long enough for his eyes to look away from Calaban for the first time. "Once again, you are more reasonable and kind than I deserve and I will not forget it. I will continue to prove my Loyalty and I promise not to make false accusations again, for while the Rajan may have knowledge of things, the Senate does demand proof at times..."

He turns to look at Iratu and says, "Can you show me a part of this palace that will fulfill your Master's needs for privacy where I can establish myself temporarily and await his orders?"

[AramusWulf]

Kyenin smiled and reached his hand down uncoiling the whip in his hands. In Calaban's mind perhaps the man had suffered enough, but to Kyenin it was just beginning. His hand moved like a darting snake in the shadows and Whispering Darkness flew through the air to coil around the throat of Tyv Adrente.

He pulled it taut and wrapped it around the pillar nearby pulling Tyv Adrente off his feet and into the air.

His ghostly voice echoed in the chamber seeming to come from everywhere at once. "Tyv Adrente, you seem to think you have suffered enough for your crimes, but there are others who would believe no suffering short of death would be appropriate."

Kyenin lifted, pulling harder so that the cold and tight metal grated against Tyv's throat, leaving him just enough breath to cry out in pain or repentance.

"You challenge a man in his home without knowing everything at his disposal and that is foolish. You threaten a Serpent who has teeth everywhere. This is not wise. If you would not be a wiser Ven perhaps we should put you out of your misery neh?"

Kyenin waited, keeping just enough pressure on the whip to cause drops of red blood to pool around Tyv Adrente's neck. At either a word from Calaban Ru or a sign of repentance from Tyv Adrente he would let go, but not a single instant before.

[Loqua]

Iratu had managed to get halfway off his chair to answer Tyv's request. All he wanted was to get Tyv to a room and let him blow off some steam. Everyone gets their pound of flesh tonight. He sat back down.

The simple fact was that the manworm Tyv Adrente must survive. Kynenin wouldn't be so foolish to kill Tyv, and Tyv wouldn't be so foolish to die. Iratu wondered why Kyenin would be involved at all. Didn't he know that Tyv and Aban had a meeting with each other to meet and end that anyone could see coming? Why stop the inevitable? Why get your hands dirty when there was a line already?

Iratu's brow lines became deeper as a bit of frustration crossed his face. Ven and their stupid propensity to make things overly complicated, it seems that any conflict had a habit of drawing everyone around the situation into it leading to those sort of thing. Why can't they just kill each other off and be done with it? How much better the world would be.

Iratu wondered if he had time to get some tea.

[wunderworks]

Calaban looks up from where he has been peering at the discarded dinner plates.

"Let him live. Release him."

[Nihilistic Mind]

Tyv had not expected an attack so shortly after being offered Hospitality and cursed his lack of distrust rather than his assailant's willingness to harm him.

After a bit of anger and rage has surged, Tyv quickly starts a low, comically strangled chuckle. Not being able to look at his assailant, he twists his head toward Calaban, his muscles stretching audibly, deepening the wound in his throat a bit, "Thank you for teaching me the value of trust, Calaban. And thank you, Spymaster, for bringing to the forefront the Value of Pain*."

Tyv tightens the muscles in his neck and he begins swinging back and forth. On the third swing, he wraps a foot around the column and pulls back on the wire used to threaten him. His throat, in turn, bleeds more blood than logically permissible.

The coiled wire in Kyenin's trained hands starts to tighten, and soon his hands find themselves squeezed to the point of Blood. "You think you can use a tool to make me submit?!"

For a brief moment, Tyv's facial expression reflects delight and ecstasy, from an angle only Iratu and Calaban can possibly witness. Then Tyv's angry, grimacing, scarred face appears again.

~~~
[ * The Value of Pain is a prayer to Jonan Drax that is taught in the early stages of Devotion. I am researching this and wanted to make a mention of it, in order to let Tyv's Devotion transpire. I will write a short essay describing my findings in the Shanri Research Institute.]