New Place, New Armory
Log Info
- Title: New Place, New Armory
- Emitter: Dolan
- Place: Andelena and Dolan's house
A damp, chilly, and foggy evening is a good evening to be indoors in Alexandria, as much as anywhere else. A small stone house on the edge of the Temple District, though, has shuttered front windows with a cheerful fire glow behind them, and the inside of the common room is warm and dry, the hearth fire well built and hot orange-black tea with a spot of something stronger in it sitting keeping warm in a kettle at the hearth's edge. A tureen of a simple beef stew sits with it, coals on top of it, keeping warm.
Dolan is sitting in one of the chairs in front of the fire, a knife in one hand and a pile of thick sticks in the other. He seems to be peeling bark and evening knots from each of these. His left shoulder is in the brace, but his feet are bare, and he wears nothing but an old shirt and trousers.
There's a turn of keys at the front door after a pad of footsteps outside, and it's not long before Andelena Donnelly steps inside, dressed in her full Sunguard regalia. She has a bright and wide grin on her face as she sees Dolan over by the hearth. "Hey baby," she says. "I'm home."
She shuts the door behind her and locks it, preventing any calico cats from making a break for it, before she goes over to Dolan. "How's your day been?" she asks. "The girls keeping you dry and warm, or are they slacking on the job today?"
When the door opens, the knife and stick immediately get set into the pile, and Dolan's halfway to his feet when Andelena enters, in her full regalia walks in. He lets out that sharp breath of relief, a wide, cheeky grin, and goes to greet her, standing up a little on his tiptoes to meet her and plant a kiss on her lips. "Welcome home, baby," he greets, then looks to the hearth. Patches is nowhere to be seen, but Spot is stretched full length in Andelena's chair, splotched white belly fully exposed to the roaring fire, half-turned over like a pretzel. "Slackers," he answers. "Let me give you a hand with all that, yeah? It's been boring today. I might go see what's on the Guild boards, soon."
"Yeah, I think it's your turn for a bit of excitement," Andelena says, after returning Dolan's affectionate kiss with her own, a little affectionate snort leaving her as she looks at the very delicious-looking kitty pretzel belly on display from Spot. "Taking out a death coach and pulling Harkashan back from the fucking brink of death was too close a call for my liking, but the Knight saw me through for a reason." She can't help but smile a little at the memory as she makes her way to the armory, where all dressing-up and dressing-down of armor and weapons happens.
"Slacker cats? Yeah, they never had to hunt even a mouse in their lives," she says with a snort. "Not since we got 'em, at least. Guess I should have expected it. Thanks for helping me, baby."
The smells of stew and tea from the hearth are abandoned, along with a cat that cracks an eye at the clank of armor across the room, and rolls to a stand. Ears back, paws forward, booty UP - and streeeeeeetch. Dolan grins at the fuzzy creature, but reaches forward to the door to the armory before she can get there. "Let me get that, baby."
He covers the lock with a hand and speaks an arcane-sounding word, and the click of the lock releasing mingles with the swing of the door to reveal the careful setup on the other side. A polished wooden floor, one of its walls lined with shelves. Twin armor racks, a rack of weapons in the middle back of the room, and swords hanging on the middle back of the wall. The room is otherwise sparse of decoration, its intent clearly functional and practical. As always, Dolan's wrangled the supplies and stocks on the shelves, a box of potions and a healer's kit on one shelf, alchemical functions on another, and all flammable items on a shelf of their own, carefully spaced. "Let me give you a hand."
Oh, that big stretch from the furry child gets noticed by Andelena, too, but... priorities take precedent over kissing fuzzy bellies and fuzzy heads. Sadly. The world is a cruel place.
Or maybe it isn't. Andelena flashes a wicked little grin as she and Dolan step into the armory, the door getting closed behind them so the cats don't follow in. "Oh, always, baby," she says. "Like I've ever turned down you undressing me."
"Must we?" Deliverance finally speaks up with a long-suffering sigh as Andelena puts the sword away into her rightful weapon-hanger.
The wicked grin is reflected in the lone chocolate-brown eye, and Dolan's chuckle mingles with Deliverance's complaint. "Get used to it, Livvie," he tells the sword absently. "Need her cleaned? You mentioned a death coach? And Harkashan?" even as he speaks, he starts in on the first of the buckles that will loosen each piece of her armor in turn, his fingers skilled and practical.
Andelena can't help but laugh heartily at Dolan's response to Deliverance, which earns a little sigh of defeat from the blade. "I'm amazed she complains at all, still. I only get the occasional scolding for swearing now. Either her standards are slipping or she's figured out that the situations we tend to get into warrant a swear or two."
She lifts her arms for him to reach some of her buckles a little easier. "Yeah. Me, Rune, Hark, and Eztli all ended up going on this Guild job. People dying for no real damn reason. I found one when we went investigating and the corpse looked like... Well, like she had the soul sucked out of her body." She shudders, just a little. "Hark was able to identify it as a death coach. Nasty-ass incorporeal being that steals souls--and hunts down people who've died before--and keeps 'em from going on to Vardama."
Andelena looks at Deliverance hanging from the rack as she says, "I put a magic warding against death on myself, and Rune got one too. So I didn't take a scratch from the damn thing at all. Poor Hark, though... Only two shots and he hit the ground. Livvie and I finished it, and I got Hark back up off the ground before we could really lose him to the Halls, but... Poor Rune. She was so damn shaken."
Dolan works mostly in silence, letting Andelena do the talking while he does the working. "His holy blessings on your work, baby," he answers. "Undead like that are - they're their own special brand of nasty. Glad everyone's all right. Wish I could have gone with you -" He sets aside the first couple of pieces, ordering them on the floor in the order they'll go on the rack. "Armor looks pretty clean. I'm glad you had that spell on yo, it's not one granted to me."
Piece by piece, the armor begins to come off. "Wish I could have gone with you."
"Me too, babe, but that encounter makes me think I'm gonna have to pick up a means of touching the incorporeal with Deliverance," Andelena adds, looking thoughtful. "I know there's an enchantment you can put onto weapons that'll do it. I could probably look at getting it into your swords. Any kind of magic weapon will bite 'em better than a mundane weapon, but having this specific enchantment will make it easier."
When the armor's halfway off, Andelena gives her shoulders a little shrug, enjoying the relief of having the armor off, even if the padding's got to go, too. "Plus with how hard you're tearing into things these days, you can get the job done better than anyone if you're able to finish something nasty like a death coach before it can do its shit to anyone. I need to do some improvements to my armor soon."
She looks at Dolan. "Speaking of which. You got anything on your wishlist for that armor of yours, baby? You know your stuff has first priority in my forge."
It takes him only a few minutes to work most of the armor free, and once that is done, he starts putting each piece into its spot on the armor rack, inspecting each piece in turn as he does so for stretched or cracking leather or damage that needs to be buffed or hammered out. There's none of the latter, since Andelena came through unharmed, but he pauses with a pauldron in his hands, the leather strap that holds it on the shoulder lying across his fingers. "Baby, replace the straps on your right pauldron." He touches the pauldron itself, a glowing candlelight shining on the metal and illuminating a strap that has clearly been stretched enough that the leather is discolored and has fine cracks running through it. This, he holds out to her to show her.
"Not just yet. Having it so much lighter helps a lot. I might want a stronger enchantment later, but thinking I'll be relying on other items. Strengthening the enchantments on those. They're a lot quieter, too. As to the weapons - might be useful. Don't use it that much, though. Will it work with the enchantments I've got?"
"Sure will," Andelena says with a smile. "Ought to go on top of everything else you've got just fine, including that one on your longsword that helps with finding weak spots in enemies." She's clearly remembering seeing Dolan in action with that longsword, judging by how proud she looks--both of Dolan and her own work.
She squints at the pauldron and its strap, though. "Damn. Yeah, I really had better work on it, then," she says. "Can't be too careful. It can stand to use some love and care on improving the enchantments, too, while I'm at it." It's clear that the armor's going to be next on the docket.
"You were lucky that Harkashan identified it and was able to recommend that spell," Deliverance adds with a sigh. "It could have gone far worse."
The mention of that sword draws a grin and a glance to the mighty blade on the wall, firmly and safely anchored in its own haness on the wall. "Don't go out again until you've done that, baby. You don't want that snapping on you." He dismisses the light glow with a gesture and a touch of his lips to his hand. "Don't worry about my gear, baby. Promise me you'll work your armor before you take any other commissions?" He holds it for a moment, then puts it aside on the armor rack in its place.
The rest of the armor follows, until it is all neatly assembled on the rack. "Harkashan is a good ally to have. I hope he's all right, yeah? I'm sure he is, if you saw to him."
"Oh trust me, I'm not gonna even dream of doing a Guild job again until I get that fixed--and I'm gonna get that fixed first thing," Andelena replies, eyeing the glow as he puts it out. It's still a beautiful thing, that gift he's got, and it's worth admiring. "I know better than to give you a reason to have kittens. You already have two." Andelena grins brightly as she gestures to the door, where the calico cats are somewhere outside, enjoying having free reign of the house (save for the armory).
She sheds the armor padding and seems to enjoy just the freedom of having it off her for a moment, ruffling her loose waves of red hair and stretching out her limbs. "He's fine--I saw to that--but I still feel bad, y'know? Rune was hesitant about taking on the thing because she'd died before herself--I don't think she ever wanted Harkashan to know what it was like."
"Good." Dolan picks up the discarded armor padding and drapes it over a hook behind the armor rack, to allow it to air out. Padding usually needs that after a Guild job - that is, if it doesn't need to be consigned to rags, the fire, or the depths of the eighteenth hell. He turns to watch her stretch, a certain glint in the lone chocolate brown eye that is distinctly appreciative, but the topic draws him off of what he is quite obviously thinking about.
He ambles back over to her and reaches to place hands on her waist. "We all die sometime, baby," he tells her, the harlequin gaze looking up at her seriously. "You just made sure that for them, it wasn't today, and the holy Sunlord blesses you for that. If you're afraid to die, the Guild is the wrong line of work for you, yeah?"
"You're right, babe," Andelena replies with more than a small amount of acknowledgement in her voice. She gives a little yawn from all of the stretching and waves it off before she adds, "A Vardaman in particular is probably more comfortable with death than the rest of us. I'm just grateful I was there, that the Knight blessed me with the gifts I got, and that I came home in one piece to my man and to our two cats."
There's a grin there on the last three words. "They are our cats, after all. You did marry me in the Temple and all that." The fact he's get his hands on her waist draws her in for another affectionate kiss to punctuate that fact.
Dolan's chuckle against her lips holds a deep, rich note, and he returns the gesture with a will. "That I did," he agrees. "And He brought you home to me, and to them. What say I remind you of why?" The note in his words, the glint come back full force in the lone chocolate brown eye, makes his meaning abundantly clear. "We can bathe afterwards."
He reaches for her hands to pull her from the room. Unpacking the pack can wait a little while. It doesn't take long before first the armory door, and then the bedroom door, click shut behind them, because after facing death, what better way to give thanks than to celebrate life?