Black Dog Bite
Log Info
- Title: Black Dog Bite
- Emitter: Zeke
- Place: Temple of Eluna
Zeke strides through the Temple of Eluna with more speed than the sith-makar usually proceeds with. He has Andelena at his side, and they are headed toward the room that Seldan is currently awaiting them within. "Thisss one will explain fully when we arrive." He had explained, not wishing for anyone to overhear the conversation. The last thing that he wants for Seldan is for someone to become overly interested in the situation. He opens the door to the room after a brief knock and peeks his head inside. "Sseldan, thisss one hass brought Andelena asss dissscusssed."
He opens the door, motioning the woman inside and then following her so that he can push the door firmly shut behind. No risks are being taken here. He looks at his kin. "Hasss there been any change?" Though he is certain of the answer, he almost wishes that it would be other than what he believes it will be.
The room is revealed to be a cell not so very different from the ones at the Temple of Daeus, perhaps a trifle smaller still. One man sits inside, bare-footed, on the slim cot at the back of the room. A stool, a basin, and a writing desk with chair, all of simple furnishings, are the sum total of other objects in this room.
The lone man sitting cross-legged on the bed, appearing to be in some form of meditative state is Seldan, bare-footed and stripped of most of his usual accoutrements. The only evidence of any of his possessions is his usual beaten brown leather knapsack on the floor of the cell at the foot of the bed, now firmly closed and buttoned shut. He wears only an old shirt with the sleeves torn off, a thing clearly intended as arms practice attire, and a pair of equally well-used linen trousers.
He looks up when the pair enters, entirely devoid of all smile. His mien is usually serious and thoughtful, but never wholly without good humor, as now. "Nay. Her light upon your path, Sunguard."
The more junior of the Sunguards follows Zeke in. Andelena is fully armored and has a white cloak wrapped around herself, Deliverance peace-tied at her hip out of an abundance of caution given everything that's happened in the last few days. "Hey, Sir Seldan," she says softly. "Brightest of days, and Her light upon your path." Both greetings given their most appropriate weight.
She frowns a little as she sees Seldan. Something about the Silverguard's appearance bothering her. "Thanks for letting me shadow Zeke today," she says. "I'm hoping I can either learn something or help. Preferably both, but--you never know."
Zeke does not seem best pleased by the response, though he clearly expected it. He moves toward Seldan, stopping at the other man's side in a show of silent support and solidarity. "Sseldan isss affected by an unusssual effect." He begins, a little uncertain as to how to explain it really. "Perhapssss it would be bessst for you to explain kin, thisss one isss not alwaysss the bessst with wordsss, and it isss your own sssself."
Seldan sits fully straight on the cot, and glances at the door a final time to be certain it is closed. "It is my hope that you may be able to help, or be able to suggest someone who may know more. I have spoken already with the Mourner Verna on the matter, and she - did not feel that it was a matter of real concern." The usually steady tones are still so. "That may be so, and yet would I have your word that you will speak to none of what you see here. Does this become rumor, it may well cause a panic within the city. Do I have your word?"
A swift glance to Zeke at his side, and for the first time, a small smile, a sham of a thing really, but better than nothing.
"I swear on my station as a Sunguard that I won't breathe a word of what's said here and seen here to anyone outside of this room," Andelena replies seriously, her steel-gray eyes matching her tone. "I really hope I can help. If not me then someone else I know. For everything you've done to help me personally, Seldan--it'd be nice to finally get to return the favor."
She walks a little closer to Seldan, but otherwise lets Zeke stay closest. He's his kin, and Andelena knows that. She does offer them both a small smile to see them close.
Zeke says nothing, this is now in Seldan's hands - and to some small degree - in Andelena's. He blinks at her very serious oath however, and nods in appreciation of it. It's no small thing for a person of honor to swear such, particularly a servant of the Dragonfather like himself and Andelena are. Doubtless Seldan - a servant of Eluna himself - will understand the weight and breadth of it.
Seldan inclines his head slowly at the oath, clearly accepting it, and lets out a breath, slowly, as one settling himself. "I received a letter from my grandmother, brought by a family servant," he begins, eyes lowered. It takes a moment before he lifts his eyes, and gestures politely that she should seat herself, whether on the edge of the cot, or the writing desk.
"It spoke of a mansion abandoned for some two hundred years, and she feared that it held something dark that must be purged. I know not what it might hold, but the letter came with a key, found on the property. When I grasped the key, a guardian emerged from it and attacked me. Zeke and I repelled it, but - it was no ordinary guardian. It took the form of a dog, and brought to mind the legend of a guardian dog buried with its owner, that it might guard the family after death."
"I was - wounded," he admits carefully. "I know not whence the effect comes, but -" Clearly, he is having some difficulty speaking of this. "There are two possibilities. Either the guardian dog is responsible, or -" Again, he pauses.
"Some years past, a magical plague stalked the city. I was one of its victims, and indeed was affected worse than many, for more than once was I struck by a major magical effect while ill, a thing that - made it worse. I had - sought assistance to remove its permanent effects, and I had thought it done, but - its form is not identical to the manifestation of the plague, but it is close enough in form to start a panic if seen."
Andelena takes a seat as Seldan indicates with his hand, choosing to take a seat at a writing desk rather than the cot. She pays rapt attention as he explains everything, her steel-grey eyes narrowing in thought as she nods here and there. "Family stuff," she murmurs. There's something that clearly resounds with her, as her eyes turn thoughtful, turn inward on itself. "Except yours sounds like it's way more potent and powerful than mine."
Her mouth screws up toward her nose, and she hums. It's just a small noise. "And you've been free of everything to do with the plague for years?" she asks, her hands going to fold together in her lap. "After getting the permanent effects removed? So it's been dormant all of this time until that guardian dog from your family's property attacked you."
She thinks again. "The key itself. It didn't do anything to anyone else. Just you? Did the guardian dog try to attack Zeke at all?" Zeke thinks back to the fight. The creature hadn't been interested in him in the least. "It did not." He looks at Seldan. She's already helped them determine something important. Whatever that key-guardian had against Seldan - it was against Seldan alone. "Thisss one wasss of no interessst to it, but thisss one iss more consscerned at the moment with Ssseldan'sss health than hisss... family ssstuff."
He looks at the paladin seriously. "Perhapsss it would be bessst to ssshow her?" It is entirely up to Seldan. He will not push either way. "It made no attempt upon Zeke," Seldan answers soberly, resting his hands in his lap, "For this am I most deeply grateful. Yes, I will show her." He looks to the knapsack at the foot of the bed. "Sunguard, if you would hand to me the dagger next to the pack at the foot of the bed." Indeed, there is one of those, in a sheath detached from the weapon belt, left carefully next to the otherwise orderly and buttoned-up pack. Perhaps he was planning for this?
"I will give her enough time to observe the effect, ere it completes," he warns Zeke seriously.
"Sure, I can get it," Andelena replies in her usual friendly fashion, going to get the dagger and holding it carefully to him still within the sheath. It's safer that way.
"I'm kind of thinking--maybe whatever happened, if the guardian key was only focused on Seldan, and it's the reason why this started happening--it's only going to affect Seldan. That's based on nothing but my own damn thoughts, though." She steps back. "Let's see what this looks like."
Zeke shifts his weight. He dislikes something about what Seldan says, but he doesn't argue, instead his subtle shift puts him in a position of ability to stop Andelena should she make a move that is nearly instinctual for Zeke himself. "Thisss one will will warn you Andelena, thisss will be... Disssscomforting." To say the least. He takes a small breath, and holds himself very still, waiting for Seldan to act.
"It is as Zeke says. You need but watch, and observe the effect. Worry not for me." With a motion born of long practice, he takes the dagger by the hilt, and waits until she withdraws to flick the sheath to the bed in one wrist-motion. He draws in a deep breath, and as he releases it, the naked weapon moves in a strike that is faster than any mortal man has a right to be, slashing his left forearm open in a long, deep, crosswise gash that would send any man crumpling to the ground and anyone nearby screaming for a healer.
Instead, he leans back against the wall, letting the bloodied blade fall to the cot next to him, the gashed arm held upwards so that it can clearly be seen, braced against its leg. He swallows hard, his eyes closing, his breathing deepening to the sort one might use in inducing meditative trance.
Zeke was right about the effect being disturbing, for amid the blood that wells up, a night-black ooze, glossy and glittering as if it had a night sky within its depths, bubbles not only out of the wound itself, but the skin around it, and in seconds has the entire lower half of his arm covered in it.
It's an instinctual thing when Andelena's arm twitches, but she catches herself. He knows what he's doing. She watches the blood, observes it with wide gray eyes that catches how it glitters. Her lips part like she has a remark to give, but the truth is that there aren't any words. There can't be. It's beautiful and disturbing in one package.
She snaps her jaw shut as she looks at how it spreads, and moves, the bubbling. It is strange. Blood shouldn't behave like this. It simply shouldn't.
Zeke's tail flick-flicks, his disturbance showing in the agitation of his tail. "Notisssce the color." He says instead to Andelena. Motioning toward the stuff bubbling up around Seldan's wound. "The blacknesss wasss a sssymptom of the plauge. Thossse affected would cough up black sssickness that would then attempt to infect othersss but..."
Here growing brave, he reaches his claw toward the inky-black and sparkling ooze. It doesn't seem to pay him any heed. "It doesss not react to thisss one." He is relieved and confused at the same time. Moreover, he is disturbed by the injury to his kin.
Crimson amid the night-black says that whatever this is - it is more than blood, and not blood. It is - something else. Something that has covered the wound entirely, end to end, and more besides. Seldan's eyes remain closed, his breathing steady, and he makes no comment, but he swallows hard at least once, the movement visible in his throat. This is - not wholly pleasant.
Yet, as the seconds tick on, less and less crimson is visible amid the glossy black - substance.
"It's entirely only Sir Seldan's, then," Andelena observes, her eyes settling on the crimson that's fading. "It seems like it's--feeding on the blood. Like it's something that's... Dormant in you, Sir Seldan. No wonder why it's not interested in Zeke."
She presses her lips together into a small line. "If that guardian dog was attached to a key that came from the family house--and it attacked you, did it maybe somehow 'awaken' this? Just because it looks like the plague--it doesn't behave like the plague, like Zeke's saying. And it makes sense why it's only reacting to you then."
"Magic." Zeke says softly. "The plague fed on it. Perhapsss thisss guardian wasss a great deal of magic. Enough to awaken it enough to do this." The fact that Seldan isn't reacting to their observations worries Zeke, and Andelena has seen enough. "Ssseldan. Let thisss one heal you now yesss?"
Surely the ooze would do it as it had done so before, but he was still ill at ease with the thought that the ooze was acting in this way. What if it ceased to heal?
After a moment, Seldan lets out a long breath, and opens his eyes. "I think the effect complete," he murmurs, sitting upright and drawing one more deep breath. He seems to have a good bit more faith than Zeke does, and with his fingers, clears away the sparkly black stuff from where the wound - was. for it is no longer there, only a long-healed white line that will soon fade marking what had a bare minute before been a serious injury.
"There is no need, kin. I can feel when it is done, and when it is working. The effect while working is - unpleasant," he admits carefully, staring unhappily at it. "The effect is a mighty and useful one, and yet-"
Andelena's eyes widen. "It does feed--on the wound itself," she murmurs. Her eyes go to Seldan's hand, to one that had wiped the glittery stuff away. "What does it do when the wound is closed? Is it... Inert?"
She reaches a hand up into her red hair, looking thoughtful again. "Magic," she says, echoing Zeke. "Sir Seldan, have you had an arcane spellcaster look at this yet? If you need someone you can trust--I'd recommend Telamon Lúpecyll-Atlon. The man's kind of a fancy sweet-talker, but he's a good man. He's helped me and my husband out so much and didn't ask anything at all in return."
Zeke can't help the instinctual scenting the air. The wariness. The plauge had been a foe for so long that he can't think of any good coming of it, even if it is healing Seldan now... Why? To what end? He nods to Andelena's words. He wouldn't have suggested the man himself, but he knew that Telamon was a reliable sort. "Sseldan hass ssome knowledge of the arcane, but Telamon isss wisse in hisss way. He may be able to help." He sighs and looks at Seldan steadily. "There isss one other that you might ssspeak to Ssseldan."
One whom he had not been willing to bring up until now.
Seldan wears a small, secretive smile at mention of having an arcane spellcaster look at it, but it is one of some secret amusement that is short-lived. He stares down at the mingled blood and black sparkly stuff coating his arm, and draws a swift sigil over the mess. The effect is not visible until his hand moves slowly over all the bloodstains and ooze-stains - himself, his clothing, the bed, the dagger he'd used - and after a minute or so of work, all of it is gone. Vanished, as if it had never been. "It washes away," he answers simply.
"I have worked with Lord Lupecyll-Atlon in the past," he replies, steadily and evenly. "A man of power, and yet, it seems to me, flighty. He comes, though, recommended from both of you, and thus am I willing to offer him my trust."
He turns, then, seriously, to Zeke. "If it is Mithralla to whom you refer -" The words begin hot, but he draws in another, deep breath, as if stilling himself, and inclines his head. "Forgive me. My tongue got the better of me." "Sorry," Andelena offers in a bashful little smile, "I didn't mean to discount your own capabilities with the arcane, Sir Seldan. I just know Telamon's always been a good friend and ally to me."
She observes the cleaning of the ooze and blood and whistles softly. "Bry would love it if I could do that," she says, before looking at Seldan again. "Mithralla--like the archmage with the shop?" she asks, before she remembers something. "Oh! That's the tallest fucking elf I ever did see. I remember him now."
Zeke blinks at Seldan. "Mithralla?" He queries, trying to remember the one that Seldan speaks of, and even the description 'tallest elf' does not remind him of the mage whom he has admittedly met only a few times. "No."
After all, that name does not fit the one he means, and the one he means is one who is no friend of his at all. He takes a breath and looks down at his claws, suddenly uncertain if he wishes to suggest it at all. "Thisss one meansss the Endlesssss Winter. Ssshe offered you sssome aid yesss? Perhapsss sshe might know more." It clearly sets him ill at ease to even suggest it.
Seldan sucks in a breath at the name Zeke proposes, for keenly does he remember his last visit to her, not so very long ago. A thing that he does not wish to do lightly. "I see. I would - pray for wisdom on the venturing to Siavonere," he murmurs, his eyes downcast. "I - do not feel ill, nor does the use of magic draw it forth, and thus does it differ. It attacked neither of you?" he looks up then, looking between them.
"Fear not, Sunguard," he adds after a moment, with that secretive smile. "Few think of me as an arcanist, for far more often do I wield the blade. It is of no consequence."
"Sir Seldan, I'm going to speak candidly, and I apologize, because we both know how smart my mouth gets when it starts running," Andelena says, pressing her hands together into her lap, but they end up being raised just a little to punctuate her next three words: "What the fuck, sir. You're incredibly skilled and talented. I know--we're both Myrrish nobility children, and in that world, you hide your assets if you don't want to get eaten by the lions, but we're not in that world. You know? I guess what I'm trying to say is--I appreciate you and your abilities."
She shakes her head and smiles. "It didn't attack either of us. It didn't seem like it was going to attack anyone or anything other than that wound. It's... Disturbing, but it's damned interesting."
Zeke has to admit that Andelena has... a way with words. He blinks at them but thumps his tail lightly behind him and nods. "Even asss thisss one hass sssaid, and known. Thisss one'sss kin isss a warrior with ssskillsss far beyond the blade. He sssimply thinkss that he isss ordinary." He gives his tail a soft wag and then looks at Seldan seriously. "Thisss one doesss not sssuggessst her lightly, ass well you know, and sso long ass you feel not illnesssss; give none to another... Perhapsss there isss no need." He can hope.
Seldan is left blinking at the abrupt candor from the Sunguard, almost as if he does not quite know how to process that. It takes him a moment to formulate a response to that, and he begins with the more innocuous observation. "I see. I am a bit weary, but no worse than that, and if neither of you have by now been troubled by it, it is in my mind that you are unlikely to be so."
"No, well do I know that not lightly would you broach the name," he murmurs. "And not lightly do I seek her counsel. For curiosity alone shall I not. Does it trouble others, or become a burden, perhaps shall I do so."
Only then does he turn to Andelena, with the very smallest of polite smiles. It is an expression that is difficult to read, until his eyes lower to the bed next to his lap, and it's about then that his stomach punctuates the moment with a demand to be fed. "Forgive me. Few know all of my true capabilities, and fewer still care to. This fact has saved myself and my companions more than once. Let others think themselves mighty, and put themselves forward. I need not do so out of a false pride, and not advertising my true strength offers me an edge, at times."
"I understand," Andelena says with a nod, looking at Seldan with a small smile on her face. "It's easier to do what you do and successfully if you're not going around town and proclaiming you've got the capability equivalent of a giant dick. Men who brag the loudest and the hardest about themselves are often the first to crumble underneath their own damn hubris."
She gets up from her chair. "Is it alright if I go and get something for you to eat?, Sir Seldan?" she asks. "Something simple? What would you like?"
For perhaps the first time in his life, Zeke does not argue the fact of someone going to fetch something where he could be the one doing it. Instead he actually - even more surprisingly - adds to the list. "Hot water, if you do not mind. Thisss one hasss herbssss for the making of the tea." He looks at Seldan and it's easy to see how much he cares for Seldan there. "Thisss one will ssstay with kin."
Seldan turns positively scarlet, his eyes dropping to the bed beside him, at the forthright and crass metaphor that Andelena uses. "Whatever the kitchen has available shall suffice me," he manages, carefully, staring carefully at the naked dagger lying on the bed next to him. "You are most kind to offer, for I did not wish to ask. None here are my servant."
His other hand reaches towards Zeke. "Truly are you a blessing in this. Too many would have fled."
"No servants here," Andelena quips as she makes her way to the door. "Just friends--and kin--and friends help each other." She doesn't dare demote Zeke to her position, so she adds, "And kin care for each other. I'll be back with food and hot water."
She opens the door and gives the two a little wave before shutting it behind her, double-checking to make sure it's firmly closed before she steps off and away to the kitchen.
Zeke does not hesitate to go to Seldan, to offer his flesh-and-blood claw to his kin. Once he would have. For so long he had. Too long. But this was the very man who had taught him not to be afraid. Had forgiven him his sins against him and still called him kin in spite of all his failings. "They would be foolsss Ssseldan. Foolsss to abandon sssome-one like you."