#tqh troupe 1

[xnikandrosx]

open location: The Lostlands, Sunken Ruins notes: smells like sermon

If word of mouth was to be believed, the High King had been taken and now more than ever, the people of Iskaldrik were lost. Desperate and confused. Magic had already taken so much from their ignorant society of pagan warriors, one by one the congregation had grown as the pious peddled hope that befit the needs of common people. Iskarans venerated violent deities that demanded they fight and sacrifice, but the average person only wanted a season with fair winds, and a crop without plague. The blight was a product of sorcery, an infection that was allowed to take root in this world because magic went unchecked.

"The Old Gods will call to you, From their ancient prisons they will sing. Dragons with wicked eyes and wicked hearts, On blacken'd wings does deceit take flight, The first of My children, lost to night. With passion'd breath does the darkness creep. It is the whisper in the night, the lie upon your sleep."

If they had learned nothing else, then Nikandros hoped they knew that the Dark One awaited around every corner. Wanting, scheming, and conniving. These Iskarans would need to learn the lessons from their past; several had joined ranks with the Legion of the Dead, a noble effort - no sacrifice was greater than theirs.

As the crowd dispersed, Nikandros gathered himself amid the ruins that were half claimed by the bog. A decorative sword hung at the Inquisitor's hip, but it was really only for ceremonial purposes. Freedom was within their grasp, all that remained between him and Lysara was the troublesome wall of prismatic light.

"Did you enjoy the service?" Nik had been holding one every day since they landed in the winding caverns of Ymir's Spine. He prayed over the blighted youth and offered a coin for their passing before they were set upon their pyre. A prayer to see them off, then holy flames to cleanse them before they landed upon the other side.

[witchertorsten]

@afshinxeldar location: The Lostlands notes: reunited and it feels so good

tw: limb loss

In the end, Torsten had played no part in the retrieval of The Princess, he had not even managed to stop the Aetherians from taking High King Orhan. Amid a field of slain Iskaran Vikings, Berserkers, and Witchers, Torsten had stood with the Raven Feeder, Njal, Etienne... and the boy's dog against a warrior with whom they stood no chance in defeating.

Torsten and the others had been recovered and stabilized, taken to The Lostlands where a strange humidity made the world around them feel pungent. A makeshift infirmary was set up in one of the ruins, and Torsten sat on the edge of the bed that had been constructed as he made an effort to dress himself. The place where his sword had been was vacant now, he could feel it in the moments when he would reach for something, the habit hadn't died yet, but Torsten was as proficient with his offhand as he was his main.

Sulking was not in his nature, and neither was regret. He refused to slink about in self-pity and remorse, already the witcher's thoughts were toward the training yard. The Iskarans were trapped here under the weight of a prismatic wall, an obstacle that would need to be overcome.

When the door opened he met the eyes of the Prince and the errant thought in the back of his mind was how Afshin might see him differently now. A failure? Less of a man? The opinions of others didn't matter to Torsten, but an uncomfortable amount of his ego hinged upon this one.

"My liege," Torsten said stiffly, holding the other's gaze for a moment before he swallowed and returned to the task of fitting his mithril greaves over one of his shins.

[alrikhart]

@fharzai location: dreamscape notes: his leg isn't fucked up here :)

When Alrik closed his eyes, the druid was always there. Even without Fharzai's influence, Alrik thought he could conjure him now when he wanted to. When he needed him; lately, that had been more often than not.

There was a lightness that came in the waking hours when Alrik was liberated from his dreams, but the darkness remained, giving contrast to the scape that spread out from the hill in all directions. Clouds of pink and lavender, permeated by shallow rivets of a darker emerald and deep violet. In the distance a storm rumbled, flickers or thunder that sparked and flourished, a shadow stretched from their hill to the horizon - but it was a distant thought. One that Fharzai helped stave from Alrik's mind while he slept.

Idle, calloused fingers trailed against Fharzai's side as Alrik kept his cheek pressed to the top of the druid's head. Eyes fixed on the horizon as he ruminated over what was awaiting him in Lysara. What sort of life he'd have, and what he and Alessia would do when they were reunited. She'd spoken so often of the tower, but now when Alrik thought of his place in the world he thought of so many things; The Old Woman in the Mountains, the Legion of the Dead, and the Tower of Olympia. It wasn't possible to have everything, but now and again obscurity had its own appeal too.

Would that he could just dream forever.

"Will you show me something?" Alrik's head tilted from the horizon toward the man on his chest, unbroken legs stretched in front of him as the pain he felt in the waking world was a thing of the past. There was such an odd symmetry between not knowing the man at all, and feeling as though he had always known him. Fate was fickle in its machinations and, this feeling wasn't enough, he found he wanted to know him for real. All of him. "Anything, your past, your present - what you want for your future." Alrik thought briefly of his own story, "I'll share after."

[alucardrakul]

@riandur location: the lostlands notes: riandur for field officer (president)

Alucard was throwing things.

The golden symbol of Lusacan and the Church of Night remained emblazoned on his cloak as the dhampir's red eyes shifted toward the nearest tree. It swelled at the center of its trunk and exploded, sending splitters of wood flying in every direction.

A dragon?

A dragon??

A blighted dragon?!

It wasn't fair!!

Vicoya and Riandur must have looked so cool fighting that thing together; by now Alucard had eavesdropped his way into hearing every possible version of his story, biting his knuckle as the details unraveled with greater detail.

It wasn't fair!

Another tree exploded before a gator snapped at him, forcing Alucard to ascend a bit higher, pouting in a way that was very distinctive of the dhampir... Which was to say he was hovering with his arms folded while he stared off into the distance with the same, unblinking gaze that he always did.

Their field officer was dead, there hadn't been word from Ankhuria in years, and Alucard was- he didn't know what to do if he wasn't given explicit directions. He'd joined the Legion of the Dead to combat his birthright, but he'd been separated from the others and probably wasn't even thought about the entire time they fought the blight without him.

Three more were added to their ranks now, the princess, another witcher, and a werewolf who could shift on command. What could he do? Well, a great deal, but that was beside the point. Alucard didn't even have a dragon scale while everyone else had walked away from the dragon with one in their pocket. Sulking in the sky, Alucard paid little mind to whatever was happening elsewhere. They could figure out how to bring the wall down on their own he wanted no part of this anymore.

[alrikhart]

Alrik watched as Luna wrenched her ax from the warg's dead body, there was a breadth of time between who she'd been when they first met, and the cloaked woman that she was now. The woodcutter was right, Alrik had underestimated her, but as he made a motion to wind the chain around his palm and elbow in even loops, he acknowledged the strength that he'd previously disregarded.

"Good. Sometimes that's all you'll need." Luna would need it in the days to come. Alrik finished winding the heavy chain and set it across his shoulder again as he ducked his head through the loop. "Let's head back before others are incensed by all this..." Alrik turned up his nose at the blackened, putrid-smelling snow. "blood." If it could even be called that.

There could be no doubt that the Warg was dead, it wasn't a gamble that either of the refugees were willing to take and so they delivered it to the gates of hell with a bloody strike after another, the land sick with blight was stained with a dark ichor that smelt of sulfur and resembled the thickness of blood.

The Warg howled in anguish as it bled from its open wounds and stumbled about, dizzy and sick with pain that it wanted its pound of flesh. The spikes embedded in the skull of the beast and it came to a finish with a sickening wet sound of breaking bones, the spiked weapon caught the light of the fading sun from an burst eye socket and for a moment cast a refracted light prism of red and gold.

She reached for her axe, the first blow upon the beast and it's gained another notch, another scratch for a beast defeated and had to be cleansed with fire and water. "Never underestimated someone who grew up in the woods, I fight like someone who wants to live. Blind a beast of its senses and you've dug the creature a grave." She does not ask where he learned to fight, her head is spinning with the gore they had caused and she couldn't bare to learn anything new.

[witchertorsten]

@freydis-freydat location: The Lostlands notes: it's hot in the lostlands for some reason, why would he wear a shirt.

The loss of the limb did not change the warrior's resolve. The Kingsguard still drew breath; the woman who'd cut him down should have seen the task through to completion. He'd wielded a sword in either hand for most of his life, that he was down to one would not stop Torsten from fighting. Torsten would return to Iskaldrik with an army, kill the Aetherians, and liberate the High King.

"Welcome back, Jarl Freydis," Torsten commented as he set the sword aside and gave the other his full attention. She was different from before, a scent permeated the air between them that brought the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end. Whispers had already permeated the tale of those who'd returned, the madness of the women of the mines was one that Torsten took with a grain of salt. People did what they needed to do to survive, and that even six came to return after two long months was a testament to their strength and Iskaran fortitude. Torsten thought nothing of the elvhen who returned.

"You've changed." He remarked, deducing passively from his years of arcana study that in her travels across places of inevitably thin veils, something had left an impression upon her. Something was holding on. In terms of change, clearly, Torsten could hardly comment. And yet, the handprint that marked his chest echoed something that he could barely hope to understand. The giant aimed to kill him, instead Torsten landed among those he was prepared to die trying to protect.

[alrikhart]

@alessiathepath location: Nornwatch Keep notes: family bonding

There was an adage about surviving the war and living through everything that would come after, but the two had yet to survive this. They would because, of course, they would, but there had been a moment when the mages had descended upon Yggdrasildal, when the fighting had started, and the explosions had gone off that Alrik wondered if this was where their thread ended. He'd never worried that Alessia hadn't made it; if his sister was dead, Alrik would have known.

Stories had power, and Iskarans were fond of their oral traditions; in the years to come, depending on how things unfolded, the Aetherians would be viewed as either bloodthirsty conquerors or liberators who'd broken the chains of countless witches and other supernatural creatures. The truth was that neither of these things felt entirely honest; conquerors may be indiscriminate killers, but for every soul they liberated, there had to be another four that were clapped in irons.

They had survived; they always did; now, here they were at some frost-ridden keep that reeked of death and blight, sitting at the edge of the world, waiting for their liberators to come set what remained of their world on fire. Alrik could focus on the positive; being alive was something to look forward to, but no one told them anything - where they were going, what they would do from here. They'd walked for weeks through the dark just to find a ruin of criminals and legionnaires who thought they would make a difference here.

"What do you think this is anyway?" The legion called it mead, but Alrik wasn't entirely convinced the deadmen hadn't pissed in a barrel and passed it around to the refugees. Alrik looked about the crowded space, women weeping as they held their children, grown men who hadn't seen the sun in weeks staring idly through the broken rafters towards the clouded sky above. Misery and shock.

[alucardrakul]

@etienneulven location: Lostlands notes: in the swamp jestie

Things couldn't possibly have been worse.

Alucard had been separated from the King and the others when the mountain collapses, he'd watched Etienne fall through the caves, and by the time he'd caught up with the King's Army, Riandur and Vicoya were already sent to scout ahead. They battled a disgraced legionnaire, faced off against Aetherians, and slayed a blighted dragon.

Alucard bit his knuckle, Vicoya and Riandur were just so cool. The King had been taken which was- well, not really his problem or his priority. Insensitive, maybe, but the Legion of the Dead didn't have a nation.

At least he'd been part of inducting their two newest recruits, a princess and a witcher.

In the swamplands Alucard knew to be weary. He'd traveled this way years ago on his way from Veilcrest to Nornwatch Keep. They were deceptive because the terrain was vastly different here and as warm as it could be, the Lostlands were just as unforgiving as the Wastelands.

Alucard hovered in front of the prismatic wall that sealed the Iskarans within their nation and let his red gaze wander over its surface. He caught sight of Etienne's reflection and turned in the air, excitedly, shocked to see the boy at all. Which, since this was Alucard, just looked like a slow turn in the air followed by a nearly emotionless stare.

"You're alive."

[alrikhart]

"I could do worse than learn from a master if you ever felt inclined to impart a lesson." The heavy chain across his torso held the meteor hammer he was fond of, and tinkered with, the weapon was unique in the mechanism that Alrik had installed. At least in Iskaldrik, but surprise was everything in a fight. "But keep waving that thing around and I'm sure everyone strong enough to hold a sword, and some who can't, will come banging down your door eventually."

Tek wasn't wrong, but Alrik had known men who had entire families by the age that the witch was now. He and his sister had a habit of absorbing what they could from the people around him. Maybe the wisest choice either had made was that neither had ever put a thought toward bringing a child into this mess. "Wisdom by osmosis, I think, it helps that I listen at least half as much as I talk," Alrik thought of the advice his father had given him ages ago when the young witch was busy running his mouth without a thought to the world around him. "My sister and I have been from the Southlands to Bjarnheim and round the plains to Yggdrasildal; I'm sure I could spout a dozen stories from each, but just because I know which way the sun rises over the Skjaldwood doesn't mean I could tell you how to make the ironwood burn." Playfully digressing and revealing some of his travels, Alrik was young, but he and Alessia didn't stay anywhere for long before the attack - and they'd only been children for a brief while before the pattern chose otherwise for him.

Alrik's father had once told him that just because he understood where a person was coming from, didn't mean he had to accept it. He knew what Alessia would say about the witchers, Absjorn Hart had been dead for ten summers and Alrik would still know what the old man would say. That Old Woman in the Mountains would impose thoughts of forgiveness, that it was impossible to know what good a person might still do for the pattern as a whole. Alrik would be lying if he said he didn't get some joy out of imagining the witchers slowly flayed by those they sought asylum from. Naturally, Alrik lied.

"I can only hope they're given a fair chance, the same chance I hope we'll all get when we get there." Alrik caught sight of one of them in their mithril plate, glittering stars amid famine, examples of exaltation. "Maybe mercy will shift their perspective, maybe even their loyalty."

Alder gave it a soft shrug, not really willing to go any further into the other's business, glad that his story would not lead the other to do something stupid like seeking glory through the Warrior's Guild. He'd already seen many of his fellow blademasters influencing the new generations and it rarely worked in favor of the inexperienced bunch who'd try too hard and eventually go missing or lose their hope after some trauma. It wasn't the type of job anyone could handle - not that he didn't think Alrik could, he did have the body as a blacksmith or at least the son of one, and most likely knew how to wield something, even if it was a hammer. "They can't say I didn't try." He joked as if he'd done his best to persuade the other man into joining his group.

A short laugh left the older man's throat as the other spoke of how it definitely wouldn't taste the same even if they did try to make their own mead somewhere else. "You sure are knowledgeable for your age, huh?" It was a rare find even amongst Iskarans, most knew only what they did in life, and that was enough. When Alder was young, he was like that too, he knew only the blade, the people and the horrors, wisdom was something he was still trying to grasp at this late in unlife. "Indeed. I guess I'll have to get used to it now." A smile softened his features once again, but would soon fade into deep thought and perhaps a bit of concern. Even though he was supernatural and Witchers were one of his mortal enemies, he didn't really see them as these powerful foes that most would depict them as, but as people just like everyone else. "I hope they do not suffer for the decisions imposed on them by the Kingdom..." It was a simple answer, but it was his true wish. "Do you think they'll treat them differently? Will they even be able to adjust to their new reality?"

[witchertorsten]

@afshinxeldar location: Nornwatch Keep notes: The Last Night ( this one is gonna hurt )

Plague was running rampant through the Keep, if the blight did not kill them then hunger and starvation would surely follow. Together with the legion they'd set a course through Hrimthur's Wastelands. The treacherous snow concealed fjords that could swallow a nation, every step needed to be counted and measured and every preparation would be made. When not running drills for the men, women, and children who were made to fight, Torsten kept watch outside the chambers of the ranting High King, or culling the ghouls that cropped up in the night.

For Afshin, Torsten's sword stood at the ready. Drawn to attention and pointed towards certainty, the prince had asked for a tutor and the witcher saw to it that his lessons drove home. He owed it to the prince to not handle him lightly, or with care, Afshin's own request aside, were Orhan alert enough to comment he would all but demand that Torsten take this as seriously as if he were any other recruit. He abstained from exercising the same level of harshness that he'd been subjected to in the Watch: Afshin's body would not be transmuting any poisons, nor would he be roused at dawn to carry buckets of water up frozen staircases.

Battered recruits, starved and thin like rods, bent to unruly limits and snapped back with course strength. When Torsten looked back at all he feared, he only saw himself. Their world was pillaged behind them and Afshin's people were falling one by one, but in time they would move on from this place they only needed to survive a little longer. If they flew too soon then their fate would be sealed, but if they waited too long then the Aetherians would find rot where the Iskarans had once been.

Swords abandoned, Torsten grappled with Afshin until he brought the prince down and pressed him into the cold stone of his chamber floor. The Keep was unforgiving, but here at least there would be no prying eyes to watch as the prince was bested over and over again. Folded and bent, Torsten pressed his forearm against Afshin's throat as he kept his lord down. He breathed into the narrow space between them, forehead bent against the other's as his heart steadily pumped in his chest: Torsten asked, "Does my Prince yet yield?"

[alrikhart]

@fharzai location: dreamscape (iskaran mines) notes: all good things start with horrific trauma

Most nights, he was restless because he found himself here again, blurring the line between unconsciousness and the waking world. Sleep was something he wished to avoid but was physically necessary; sleeping draughts helped, lulled his weary mind into the dreamscape, and for a few uninterrupted hours, he'd toss and whisper pleas for help into the dark of the night above him.

In the dark, it was hard to discern what was him and what was the cold echo of cavernous walls. Hot. Cold. The Iskarans had dug into the mountains, deeper than anyone should have gone, instead knocking at the halls of the damned. Murder, arduous labor, a sunless life, and hunger were enough to drive anyone towards desperation. In the dreamful hours, Alrik forgot what was and what wasn't; the escape he'd imagined and played over a hundred times in his head had to be a fantasy. Nobody got out, at least not alive; this place made monsters of anyone, he'd felt in the gray matter that squeezed between his fingers. In the shards of a broken skull that was splattered across the cavernous floor.

Where was Alessia? She was here - she must have been here? Had that been her? He should know if his sister was dead. He would have known if he had killed her, but then where had she gone -? It was dark and cold. So dark. The air lingered on his skin like damp, clammy fingers stretched greedily across his flesh. A breath fell from his lips as the haunting whisper of cruelty rattled like a hiss at the back of his synapses, it told him what was to come, and what was inevitable: the Norns had tied his thread long ago, and it was here in the depths of Helheim that he'd wander eternally. Cold and lost, nameless and forgotten.

Overhead, the infernal pitch of the cavern cracked open, and light poured down from above. Bit by bit it broke apart as the warmth of the sun washed over the miner's frame, bringing with it a chorus that rose from something Alrik couldn't place. For so long, hope was an enemy because it brought with it nothing but despair; there was a peace that came to Sisyphus's acceptance of his fate; the last hope of treachery against the Gods was to consign oneself to the trials ahead. But there it was, the sun, the sky, and when the ceiling of the mineshaft broke away, he found himself on his feet. Washed in the warmth of the day he stood before a man with gray eyes, a stranger.

"Who are you?" Asking how hadn't crossed his mind. He had no awareness that this was a dream, no control over what was happening around him, and no ability to truly question the changes. Instead, his fanatical mind went to what he knew, to the Gods he'd learned so much about growing up. If this was Sol, Mani had to be nearby, driving their chariots across the sky. There were stories about falling into pacts with deities, but Alrik did not think of himself first, instead another's name fell from his lips. "Where's my sister? Where's Alessia?" At his side Alrik's hands had balled into fists, mediocre magic met the arms of a blacksmith's son, but God or no he would not be parted from her.

[alucardrakul]

@vicoya location: Hrimthur's Outpost notes: emo boy and sunshine girl

Misery permeated the paths that the legionnaires had spent their time carving out through Ymir's Northern Spine. The Wastes were treacherous and the Iskarans had lost more over the cliffs than Alucard cared to consider, but they'd made it to the broken village of stone, and for the first time in over a month, the spirits of these refugees had lifted. The Legion of the Dead were without their field commander, Deidameia. Iskrates, their archivist, had also perished in the battle and what few secrets had survived Nornwatch Keep were carried on the backs of the Legion.

Admittedly, Alucard knew little of druids and their secrets. The elvhen did not smile kindly either on their vampiric cousins - but here in the midst of this broken ruin that was once a bustling metropolis was a waygate etched in runes far too intricate for even his eyes to digest. In the distance he heard the songs that rose from the refugees, Alucard could feel the warmth from their fires, and the light that filtered laughter that felt premature.

Iskarans were known for their mistreatment of witches and the supernatural as a whole. Alucard had suffered the withering glances of these refugees that had been pushed from their homes; they didn't trust a creature of the night, they didn't trust anything that lived a life that they deemed unnatural.

Alucard had no mind to join them, nor did he really know how. When they arrived in Lysara, word would need to be sent to Commander Silas Dagon at Amon Sûl, the darkspawn were more organized than even they had predicted.

"It's hard to believe that long ago this used to be-" whatever this was. "someplace important, it's easy to forget how fragile things are." How easy it was to forget a thing once it had been broken and thrown away. "You should join the party." Alucard commented over his shoulder, he recognized the sound of Vicoya's boots in the snow, her steps, like Riandur's were a pair that the dhampir knew well by now.

[witchertorsten]

As the ashes fell from the sky, it felt like burning rain. Deceitful white snow that brushed black across the skin; his armor remained undaunted. Mithril make that shone through the events of the night. Orhan was alive. Afshin was alive. The princess- Torsten felt his hands ball into fists at his side, she had not been his priority, but neither had he ever thought that the darkspawn would be taking prisoners. The shieldmaidens did not die easily, Arros, Freydis, and Aytaç were all taken along with some others. Torsten didn't know all their names, not yet, anyways, but the witcher would commit each to memory. Each was a failure that the Kingsguard would not soon release. Iskaldrik was the realm he'd sworn to defend, the royal line, and the people within - meant to protect them, even if that meant protecting them from themselves.

The flames of the pyres had dulled to embers, the dawn had settled over the horizon, and every moment they spent in this blighted Keep was a moment of daylight that the refugees were taking for granted. "They gather the last of their supplies now," rolling tents, bundling rations, blanketing oxen and tightening the stirrups over horses. Ill preparation would kill them just as quickly, this was a balance. Harold, recently washed clean of the blighted blood, wandered towards him as Torsten lifted his hand so that the drake could press its forehead into his calloused palm. "I'm told you saved a great many of our people, blademaster." She was already owed his respect, but now she had something else as well. "You have my gratitude."

when?: early morning after the last night where?: what remains of nornwatch tower who?: the babes that are there kith kith

Thora watched them build the pyre as she cleaned her sword, though she didn't help. There were so many that had come so far only to end up beneath a fire, her own mother among them. Thora's stomach could barely handle it. It churned in disgust and twisted in anger, coiling into knots as she contemplated her life over the last few weeks. The circumstances of the Iskarans weren't random, someone was going to pay. Good thing too, she thought, because I actually enjoy wiping blood off my steel.

Not one for commiserating, Thora seemingly broke out of her trance-like state when Kari shifted her attention, growling in warning as she always did when someone stepped too close to her companion. The pyre no longer interested her, and neither did discussion beyond what came next. The wolf settles once Thora pets her neck. "You look well enough," she interjects abruptly as if she hadn't been soullessly breathing in smoke and death. "Have you been around? Do others seem ready to move? The longer we stay the higher chance there'll be another attack."

[witchertorsten]

@freydis-freydat location: Hrimthur's Wastes, West of Nornwatch notes: search & rescue starter

Tracking runaways, strays, and prisoners was among the witcher's skills, it was ingrained in their training to be able to navigate harsh terrain while picking up on the subtle clues that a person, or monster, might leave behind. The headiness of the air was something that Torsten had become accustomed to, the frigid acclimation to his crystalline breaths left an acrid, blighted taste on the tarmac of his tongue that he'd connected to the presence of darkspawn. Children had wandered far from the walls and had yet to return, the worst could be assumed but neither Torsten nor the Jarl seemed satisfied until they saw it with their own eyes.

Stone crunched beneath his boots as they marched side by side through the sparse, dead winter trees that seemed as old as the rock below the ice beneath them. Rot had lived in the Wastes for thousands of years, coiled itself into the flora, and ingratiated itself into the fauna as rodents the size of his forearm scurried about in the dead of night.

"Children of the midlands are resourceful and strong." Resolve etched the stoic's tongue in typical candor as he spoke in stark, blunted truths. It would never be his intention to coddle anyone, least of all a jarl or shieldmaiden, but instead, some reassurance her people would not go quietly - and this too was something that they would all survive.

[alrikhart]

NAME: Alrik Hart                                             TAGGING: Alessia Hart & Prospero LOCATION: Hrimthur’s Wasteland, Ymir’s Northern Spine      TIMEFRAME: Morning of “The Last Night” through “Hrimthur’s Wastelands.” NOTES: In which Alrik goes it alone for a while before rallying with the rest of the troupe.     CONTENT WARNING: Depression, Psychosis, Violence, & Blood. 

think of a flame;

[alucardrakul]

@blightedmikhael location: Nornwatch Keep notes: troupe 1: Nornwatch Keep

The blighted lands were riddled with the bodies of young men who looked to prove their mettle against a fable: they always came up wanting. Ego would get a man killed as effectively as a blade, and the arrogance that permeated these refugees held some of the blame for the rampant plague that was running through the rank and fold.

Archivist Iskrates was working on a way to reverse the taint, or so he'd claimed. Alucard's father was apparently capable of doing this, but the dhampir had never seen it first hand. Like so many things, it was one of the secrets that the vampires hoarded among themselves, and Alucard was a product of this promise.

Red eyes fixated on the warrior who appeared to be poking at a piece of blighted meat, as if he were considering what to make of it. "You should throw that away." Alucard's voice ran along the old stones of the Keep as he tried to make out any signs of taint present on the other. "Or better yet, burn it."