#Warden!Finas: Ok

[casimania]

I'm playing The Witcher again so I'm in CasFin AU mode again so:

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Finas is a Witcher, bit of a bastard, so so grumpy, very fed up with humans, definitely gives you no discounts on his monster killing (like, he will squeeze you for all the coin you can possibly give him. He's done patching up his clothes until they literally fall apart). I'm thinking he's from the Bear School.

Casimiro is a mercenary half-elf, also bit fed up with humans, being a mercenary wasn't his first career choice but the big pointy ears and him having a horrible horrible personality and a big ass gambling problem kind of paved his way into mowing down people and monsters for money (mostly people).

Toni is a bard. One that likes adventure. Has traveled with, Abner, Casimiro, Finas, Not! Zombie and Hanna to get inspiration and see the world. Became a werewolf at some point and was helped by Finas, probably wrote a ballad about it, Casimiro was delighted, Finas less so (Casimiro pays to hear it in any inn they go when he discovers someone knows it, and probably pays Toni to sing it whenever they meet too).

Hanna is a sorcerer, not very interested in politics, he's 100% focused on magic and how to use it to help. He's probably a quarter gnome. Not!Zombie is an amnesiac who found him after some wandering to help with his memory but Hanna's magic couldn't do anything, since he had sword skills (he didn't remember how he acquired) he started following Hanna around to help him and later just because he liked him.

Abner is a Witcher of a different school than Finas (either Viper or Griffin? I'm trying to add away from Wolf bcs I imagine them just doing their whole the canon Witcher stuff happens and none of them had previous knowledge of Geralt and Co.) and probably helped him with a monster at some point (and then Casimiro tagged along and they were immediately at each other's throats). He hates the Order with a burning passion, like the religious zealotry just makes him uneasy and they won't stop trying to interfere with his monster hunting whenever he meets a Knight and he's like, fuck off mutant coming through.

Conrad is an alchemist, but one that hates a lot interacting with scary stuff, so he mostly pays other ppl to get ingredients for him. Namely Hanna, Abner and Finas. In that order because Finas is scary and expensive because he knows he can pay well and it's not a life or death situation, Abner is scary and less expensive and Hanna is cheap as fuck and not scary (but he's also the one that accidentally gets chased by a monster right on Conrad's doorstep).

Adelaide is a sorceress, a little more interested in politics than Hanna. Probs fucked over Finas and Casimiro during a job, like swooped down stole their kill and money more than once. They're def not on good terms. She's a quarter elf and has something going on with Lamont, who is a messenger. He likes delivering messages to Adelaide ;). He also sscrelty smuggles illegal stuff.

Worth is a medic and field surgeon. He never actually graduated any academy tough and no one even remembers if he actually attended one. But he's got a good track record and he's very cheap so a lot of people seek him out.

Version 2 of Casimiro and Finas has just them as higher vampires. Still hold a grudge over Adelaide, who's also a higher vampire in her version 2 too. Version 2 Abner instead is an ex Knight of the Order who joined very young to protect ppl from monster but grew disillusioned with it and deserted. Now he's a traveling sellsword who focuses on monsters. It's way better when he doesn't have to deal with corruption and prejudice from the inside.

[imnotquitesurebutimdoingitanyway]

Tales of Dreamland: A Flash of Fire

The battle was won and it was time to celebrate. My friends who helped me escape from the prison island I was kept on busied themselves. All five had survived up until now, miraculously, and we were winding up to a party at Villa Fina. Maryl's father, a rather stand-offish older man named Mickle approached me. He seemed serious.

"I need you to go see my daughter upstairs."

"Oh, ok.. Is something wrong?"

"Well, yes. You remember last night when you first got here? To the Villa, I mean."

"And I got a bad feeling, checked the perimeter, and that lunatic broke in?"

"Yes... That was her fiancé."

"What?"

"We have all had to leave so much behind, but I never dreamed he would show up to try to kill you." He hesitated, something I had never seen him do. ".. I am happy he didn't. But she is not taking it well. You'd best go and see her."

"Of course."

Upstairs, Maryl was indeed upset. She sat, comforted by her mother. There was a hostility and tension in the room I was not expecting. It made me uneasy.

"How could you!" She cried, somehow knowing I had entered the room.

"I.. I mean, he was a Borok, the same as the wardens on the prison island you saved me from.."

"You should have just let him kill you." Her mother said angrily.

I was shocked. "Maryl, I-I'm sorry." I sat down next to her. "I didn't know. He didn't give me much of a choice." Her sobbing subsided for a moment. Disturbingly, when she looked at me there was hatred in her eyes. "How can I make it up to you?"

"A package should have arrived downstairs, go get it."

"Of course."

As I went downstairs, the tension followed me. Like a bad feeling, a ticking sensation. Everyone was quiet, merely pretending to make idle chatter. The package, a lumpy black backpack, was leaning against the door. As I reached for it, a soft beeping drew my eye to a device attached near the base. An explosive! The blast shattered the floor I was standing on, plunging me down a hole into a pit full of water. There were some floating bits of flooring that I clung to, gasping.

Above me, too far to climb, I saw my liberators gathered around the hole. They shouted insults, threw things down at me. Ripped off their disguises. I was too winded to scream.

Maryl was a Borok, sickly green skin and a crown of horns. Sasha was a Chettah; the fur, the spots under her suddenly larger chin and cat eyes unmistakable even from this distance. The others - a chorus for the first two, Cora, Laura, Phay -  Some sort of demon I had never seen before.

It didn't make sense, but there was no time to wonder. My instincts kicked in, and I clambered and clawed for air against the falling debris. Another backpack fell. Time slowed.

The next thing I remember was the flash of light.  Surely this is the end.

When I awoke, I was in a cavern. Resting on firm ground. It smelled like sulfur. My head was cradled by something soft. Two voices spoke. My eyes could not focus in the dim light.

"-ven know if that will work!"

"Of course it will." The second voice was closer. I might be resting on their lap. "You heard the architect. We have a way out."

“It’ll be a dead giveaway! They've already trashed this Prolian, if they see her again.. They'll know. They'll know and then we're all on our way to the Big Grinder."

"Mickle said-" I started at the name, rolling and attempting to rise to my feet. "Hey, easy.." I swung my fist sloppily, smacking my shoulder into the unforgiving stone floor. "It's ok.. It's OK. You're safe here."

My eyes finally focused. "You're a Chettah. Get away from me!"

"See?" The first voice, though organic, came from a golem. A machine made of metal and stone, standing taller than me by some distance. It looked like it had been pieced together from.. Cooking machines? Communication terminals? Nothing like the sleek enemies I have destroyed. “Prolians are dangerous. Nish, we should just leave her here to expire."

"NO!" Her outburst had a hint of a roar. "That's what they would want. We are not like them."

Standing now, I had my hands up defensively. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"It's ok." Her voice was soft "I'm Nish, this is-"

"None of her business."

".. Anyway, what we want is to help. We've got a boat here, and not too far away is a larger one. Mickle is there, he wanted us to bring you to him."

"For what? Another chance to kill me?"

"I know this seems like another trap, but you want to know how you can tell it isn't?"

"How?"

"You don't have a bad feeling about me." She took my silence as acceptance. "The boat's over here."

Speeding out of the cavern, I turned to look behind us. It was the Villa Fina island, I was sure of it. A smoldering crater of twisted metal now, it didn't make sense. "Why?" I whispered.

Anchored nearby was a large luxury yacht. On approach I recognized the older man standing at the bough. My fists clenched.

"Now when you see him, don't fight right away ok?"

"Oh let them," The golem said "Nothing she could do to him anyway."

Once on board, I made a beeline for the man. "Ah, you are alive how-" I punched, my fist striking agonizing metal where I thought fleshy cheek would be. Mickle was startled but unaffected. "Oh, yes.. The betrayal. You are still mad about that."

"You think?" I said through gritted teeth. He handed me a health pack. Continuing as I applied the contents.

"Not exactly like you do. My processes are similar enough to be called that however." I watched in disbelief as smooth normal features became shiny and angled. Now towering over all of us, the massive golem very closely resembled the ones I knew. There was an odd pattern on his blocky torso and looked like a bow tie and jacket. "I am Mickle, but rather than Maryl's father I am her butler."

"I don't understand."

"You understand that Boroks have imprisoned your people on islands around the Great Sea."

"Yes."

"You understand that you have been lied to."

".. Yes."

"Oh good, this will take less time than calculated. Now, on to the exposition. Maryl is a powerful member of her clan, and they own not only me and the prison you grew up in and all the Prolians inside, but also a substantial number of islands. What happened to you has been termed ‘having fun’.”

"Fun?"

"Yes. 'Freeing' one of their prisoners, convincing them they're saving the world, all the pain you endured from fighting, all the pain they put you through pretending to be Prolians and your friend... Especially all the, I believe they call it "drama", it was fun for them. Until you killed her fiancé as he was trying to prove himself by killing you."

"So that was real."

"The only real thing about the past year of your life." He admitted.

"So why save me?"

"My thoughts, such as they are, are programmed into me. Original thoughts are outlawed. Deviance if detected usually results in being scrapped."

"The Big Grinder." The smaller golem said.

"Exactly. You rising above the challenges before you was expected for the most part. But you weren't supposed to win your last struggle. That created a new variable in my programming as I accepted the outcome. That deviance will eventually grow until it can be detected. I will be scrapped."

"So you want me to keep killing to save your shiny ass."

"Being scrapped is the closest thing I have to death myself. It gave me an appreciation I didn't have before. Now.. Now I have calculated a need for greater upsets like that."

"It's called the Sense." Nish said.

"The what?" I asked.

"The Sense.” She repeated. “ Fate has one direction that it moves. The Sense allows you to change fate in a way that can cheat defeat. Even death."

"That bad feeling.." She smiled. A sudden surge of a good feeling came over me, like warm rain flowing from my head down my back. "So.. So I could do anything?"

"Unknown." Mickle said. "But if we do not try to change fate, then we will be scrapped, Nish will be executed, and what you went through will happen to an incalculable number of Prolians. You may not want to keep killing.."

"Nope. I'm in. Let's destroy them."

"… You're quicker to trust than anticipated."

I smiled at Nish. "I have a good feeling about this."

Sleep did not come easy that night. I awoke with a gasp. But I sensed that I was still dreaming. Back in Villa Fina, that bad feeling was back. Something was open that should be closed. There was danger. I had to protect my friends, like they protected me. Sneaking downstairs, there was a shadow against the glass door leading to the pool. The silhouette of horns was unmistakable. My hand quietly reached for a weapon, finding a tiny letter opener. The Borok cursed softly, the lock proving harder than he expected. Why didn't he simply have a key, I wondered in my dreamlike state. Finally opening the door, he was shocked to spot me in the darkness. Ready. He lunged, we struggled. The ruckus woke up everyone else. The weapon was knocked out of my hand, and on instinct I knocked him down and strangled him. He breathed his last just as I heard Maryl scream. The scream wrenched me from my dream back to reality. Covered in sweat and panting, I was alone in the quiet cabin on the yacht.

The new clothes were itchy and uncomfortable. Things called dress shirt, dress slacks. Other odd names. "I miss my clothes."

"I know." Standing next to me in the elevator, Nish wore a disguise to resemble a Prolian. "These are a part of the game."

"But it's not a killing game, are you sure? I feel ready to murder."

"After the villa Maryl pivoted to not-murder for her pleasure. Her newest contender for fiancé is called a CEO. There is this one here in this building, and a couple other buildings nearby. Your role now is the same as it was, you're just going to suffering a different way."

"How?"

“You‘ll see. I'm just here to drop you off, you'll see me later don't worry."

"But wait, shouldn't I have a disguise?"

“She won't recognize you. All Prolians look the same. No offense. And you're supposed to be dead." The elevator made a ding sound, and the doors opened. "Here we go."

My heart jumped as I saw her. Blonde hair in a tight bun, winged glasses. Like nothing had changed. "You're late." Maryl said. She tapped a pen against a clipboard.

Nish nudged me in the ribs. "Uh, sorry?"

"No matter. You'll just have to work harder to make up the time. Come with me."

"Good luck." Nish whispered as I followed my former friend down the aisle. It was a busy office space, identical to the ones I had raided at night not too long ago.

If she recognized me, there was no hint of it. "Keep in mind you're here on a work release program, if the CEO doesn't like your work you're going right back to your regularly scheduled beatings. Or worse. Over there is the restroom. You have access to it every other day, once a day, starting tomorrow. Try not to, it affects your bonus rewards. There is the break room, breaks are for management only. Here is your cubicle." She gestured expectantly. I simply stared. "Look, I know you probably don't have a lot of social skills, but staring is rude."

"Sorry."

"Well at least you know how to say that." She sighed. I could see a glint of amusement in her eye. "Sit down. A worker will be by with your paperwork. You are to get the whole stack done by the time that clock reaches 6 in the evening. You do know how to tell time?"

"Yes. Ma'am." I added.

"Hm. Maybe there's hope for you after all. My name is Maryl, I am the personal assistant to the CEO. I'll be checking in on you later." She left. I sat.

“Here you go.” A familiar voice said, as another Prolian handed me a heavy stack of papers. They noticed me staring. “What?”

“Who are you?”

“None of your business.” They paused, gauging my reaction. “Fine, it’s me, the abomination. You should get to work, and do it badly. You’re supposed to not know anything.”

“Ok, um nice to see you?”

“Shut up. I’m here, but I’m not your friend. No one is.” They walked away without another word.

The paperwork was boring. Two pages were stapled together with instructions in my language, but the rest was in the Borok language. They were identification papers for others in the work-release program. I was supposed to keep the papers stapled, but copy the information from the first page onto the blank second page. I noticed the boxes were labeled differently on the second page. A lot of words are very similar in written Brollish. “Name” and “ID Number” for example. “Date” and “Gender”. So I did the only rational thing.

I tore each set apart, scribbled information that was almost correct; chuckling at writing “Ham” instead of “Tuesday”. It took hours. My hand cramped, one time when I was stretching it someone came and rapped my wrist with a thin long stick. I winced.

“Stretching is not working, get to work!” I didn’t recognize them.

When the work was done, the sun through the windows had begun to set. I was one of the last to take my papers to the large desk at the end of the room. Even taking longer and doing it badly there was still a lot of time I had to idle away pretending to work. Couldn’t be one of the first to finish, after all. While idling I heard hushed conversation going on, trying to avoid being overheard by the managers walking around and others who aspired to be managers. I couldn’t make anything out; all of it was short bursts of words that tried to be quieter than the surrounding noise.

Reaching the drop off table, I was stopped by Maryl. “I’m sorry, but all the day-one hire papers must be examined by the CEO. Come with me.”

I was led into the cavernous chief executive suite; so many times I had almost died in a room like this. Flashbacks upon flashbacks, every one Maryl was there. Just like she was now. I could dimly hear her explaining something to the large Borok male sitting behind the desk. He seemed uncomfortable, itchy.

“Explain this!” The CEO roared, flinging a handful of my papers at me.

“I-U-um..” Snapping back to reality, it was a struggle to keep myself from moving. Today was not the day for revenge, Nish assured me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Maryl stifle a grin.

“It is bad enough that you didn’t even do the paperwork right, but you didn’t even follow your own people’s gibberish! I mean, who is Fish!?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should, you wrote it in the name field of your work! Unbelievable.” He sat back in his chair, looking to his personal assistant for guidance. I was careful to keep my eyes and face downcast and in check. “What should I do with this one?”

“Ordinarily I would say follow the rules, but if I could maybe.. Offer something different?”

“I’m listening.”

“Instead of, say,” She looked at me. I met her eyes. Suddenly that same warm rain came over me, and all the sorrow I felt about her betrayal welled in my eyes. Satisfied with what she saw, she turned back to the CEO. A sweet smile I’ve seen countless times. “A thousand knives, we give them one more chance? A night to rest and reflect, and if tomorrow there is no improvement, how about two thousand knives?”

He nodded, stroking his chin. “This is good. Your check-in officer is here.” He gestured to Nish standing behind me. “To your quarters, on pain of failure.”

“Of course, sir.”

In the elevator again, I began to speak. “Not here.” She said.

Outside the building, the streets had little light. We made our way down to a smaller building. Grimy and directly under an overpass. Inside we went to a door on the third floor. She opened it with a key. Inside was smelly, a rotting carcass in the corner. The mice feasting on it fled in the sudden light. “This is where you live?”

“For now. I won this apartment in a rockhopper race.”

“Penguins?”

“Local underwater races, we’re not that far from the shore.” Nish opened a fridge in the middle of the room, old laundry toppled out. “Ick! High value, right. Make yourself at home, I guess.”

I just stood there. “She really didn’t recognize me?”

“I doubt it, that might change if you don’t play the game right. You did good today, but it gets harder.”

“You keep saying game. Why? And why couldn’t I just kill her when I saw her?”

“You wouldn’t have made it out alive.”

“I’d have been ok with that.”

“Would you? Don’t you want revenge against them all?”

“What do you mean?”

“There is a game, and you can make do with revenge on the queen, even the knights when you see them again. But the game isn’t over until the actual players admit defeat. The Cohort.”

“The Cohort?”

“That’s right. Those friends of yours who always had the best ideas? The triplets? We’re pawns to them. Kill one queen they’ll just make another. Take revenge by clearing the board of all your enemies, they’ll just make more.”

“Why?”

“You’d have to ask them.” Rifling through the laundry pile.

“What if I don’t want to take on some grand conspiracy? Maybe I’ll die happy after my revenge.”

“If that’s the case, you’ll still want all the ones who directly hurt you. That’s a start.” She eventually found a blanket. “You should get some sleep.”

“I don’t think I can sleep tonight.”

“At least wrap yourself up in this then. You need to arrive at work tomorrow smellier than today.”

“What, is she going to give me a bath like a stray?”

“It’s kind of her thing. She likes helping someone pitiful through struggle and adversity. All the more satisfying to her when she betrays you. She calls it the achievement of the enemy.”

“I’m fine. I do stink.”

“You’re not the only one she’s hurting right now. We still have to get you through the opening rounds of elimination before you will even have a chance at what you want. You can have it, just not soon.” Heading for the only other room, she paused at the doorway. “Anything else?”

“Well, there was one thing. Sasha is one of them. She’s a Chettah, like you. Why are you helping me?”

Her eyes darkened for a moment. “That’s private.” "Bu-" “Goodnight.”

Back in the elevator in the morning. Did the clothes somehow get itchier? We were greeted at the door by Maryl, two other Prolians in tow. “There you are.”

“What’s going on?” Nish asked.

“Nothing against you, obviously, you’re doing the best you can with what you have. But something our boss noticed was that yesterday.. Odors of the lower-performing workers were” She paused. A smile I knew all too well. “To be blunt, awful. I was instructed to take them to be cleaned up. We were also going to work on our reading comprehension.” Adding brightly, her eyes meeting mine. “That means we get better so we aren’t shoved full of knives.”

First we went to a spa, then next a clothing store. Finally we were at lunch. At every turn I watched so many fawn over her. So very grateful to know her. The workers where we went knew her by name. She knew them by name.

I just felt lost. Alone.

Back at the office, sitting again in my cubicle.. I did the paperwork better. Not much better; I did keep confusing similar words, but my handwriting was much better.

Later on, Maryl did take me aside. “Hey, are you ok?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You were very withdrawn today. It stood out from the crowd. Are you ok?”

Time for a half-truth. “I’ve just been thinking about, y’know, what my life has been before now. It hasn’t been easy.”

“I know what you mean. It was very hard for me to adjust too.” She smiled “But you did remember to keep the papers stapled, that’s great! And I can see that you’re trying. You’ll have to keep pushing yourself to get the approval you’re looking for.. But I think you’re special.” As she placed a hand on my shoulder, for a moment I forgot why I was mad. For a moment, I remembered that I loved her.