Aryen Caladras - Roads

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Obsidian Sea
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Aryen Caladras - Roads

Postby Obsidian Sea » Mon Jun 20, 2016 2:38 pm

The Three Spears shot high into the sky across his right shoulder; the foothills cascaded down into The Royal Plains towards the east. Faint traces of snow could still be seen coming down from the sky, buoyed by a chill wind, likening themselves to memories of a frosty and fruitless season. Tonight, a full moon gleamed above, and seemed to transpose snowdrops to celestial fire, bright and beautiful as their gentle descent brought them to deaths on the rocky terrain upon which Aryen Caladras stood. His hair was wet with the snow, and the sweat. On his right temple, a lock of hair bound together by dry blood lifted and planted itself back upon his face with the going and the coming of the wind. The air carried the flavour of wet dog to his nose.

The picture of Garvin Culdrake had shrank until it was a silhouette, the distinction between the man's shape and that of the boy's body on his shoulder became more difficult to detect until both were one, and then they both ceased entirely in the distance. Behind the full moon, the sky was like iron, as though it were all Aryen: alight with a purpose; an ebbing and flowing energy that melds and sometimes comes away from the dark, hard backdrop that has been made for it. He had not yet come to fully comprehend his feelings about the Filurian boy that had died tonight. Although the body was on Garvin's shoulder, the blood was on Aryen's hands. He was grateful that it need not have been any other way, but there was no gladness to be shared. No triumph, and no pride.

As the boy's body was taken away, Aryen Caladras turns to the duty of burying another. The body of the Werewolf; Konrad's body. Someday he would come back, and put a memorial here - for the man, not for the beast. Grim unto the last, Aryen had brought a shovel with him. He places Konrad's body in the ground, and utters some quiet words, beseeching The Moonmaiden to be merciful, and to be glad in his stead. All the while, Fenrir holds vigil. One being man, and the other beast, a person might think that there is a limit to the depth of the companionship between the two. Even so, he is not alone as he had been when he had buried the first of them that he had slain, and that was something to treasure.

The Ranger waits for the sun to rise and tell him of morning's coming. In the night, an end had been made; not only to Konrad's life, or to that of the Filurian boy's, but to the things of yesterdays. Aryen pushes himself up from where he sits, heavy, upon the earth, and allows himself to stand in the light of the morning, unashamed to be there. Days had been spent in pursuit, bringing him through the vast and unchecked wilderness of Impiltur. Now, he will return by a calmer way towards the Laviguer Road. He will find the Silverwoods, and see friends again, and turn his sights towards a way that he has so very often left unconsidered: the future.
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Tristan Thalavar
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Re: Aryen Caladras - Roads

Postby Obsidian Sea » Sat Jul 09, 2016 11:38 am

He bore the burden upon his back as any of the Ilmateri would. Fenrir was close at hand, for this was the first time that Aryen Caladras had wandered the country's untamed sections without the readiness to defend himself, and he needed his companion more than ever. A mind not at all the same, and yet not entirely unlike that of Ilmater's worshippers dragged him forward through the damp plains, and up the uneven path towards the place known as The Silver Pike.

There was purpose in this for him. Physical exertion was not his enemy, and with such strain perhaps he could enact some penance for past insufficiency. Aryen put the headstone in the ground, underneath the enduring conifer that gave shelter to the mound where the Werewolf had been buried: the Werewolf, and the man.

----

Here lies Konrad, a man I never knew.
He was buried 20th Kythorn; The Time of Flowers, with some remorse.
May his spirit go to a kinder place, and his sins remain in the earth.


----

It had not been something he had achieved for Ericca, or for Markus. Even for Jhasira he had not been the one to do it. But sadness and a sympathy can transpose even hatred to affection, and his soul had grown since Konrad had first become his enemy. Aryen waited for the nightfall, and kept his vigil over the site for a second time.

Thereafter, Aryen goes not to the Silverwoods that know him well, but through the wilds he travels to Filur and he keeps watch there, for he sees that all is not safe, and that foes known best by himself live too close to its humble people; blameless in their generation for the plight of the world.

//OOC: I hope to make a plan for organizing a couple of short dungeon runs some evening (GMT) next week, but will have to stall on confirming a date until I know more about my schedule.
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Re: Aryen Caladras - Roads

Postby Obsidian Sea » Sun Sep 04, 2016 6:44 pm

The dawn comes. Today not like the one before it. Aryen Caladras' camp is sequestered on the hills opposing what the locals know as Folly's Forest, on a landrise made accessible by the great snowdrifts that have yet to melt away from the roads that connect the settlements of Impiltur. These roads: so often fraught with peril, and predators to whom Aryen must become a predator himself. At least, that is the moral compulsion by which he lives his days and his nights - night more often than day, for such is his calling if ever he had one.

The moral compulsion which leads him now is different, however. He stokes the fire. He should wake the girl so that they can move whilst the light is on their side. Besides, perhaps she is frightened by the night. Is she? He does not know, nor know anything about her. Even her name. That would be the first thing he would ask her when she wakes-- no, first, if she is hungry; how she slept; how she feels. The pain that continues on from the previous night is not in the bruises beneath his bracers, nor the burnt skin where lightning had struck his back: it would be in the mind. His, and perhaps hers too.

Yet children are innocent, he thinks, as he watches the girl sleeping. And innocence breeds bravery, doesn't it.

That was not a question.

For a time he watches her sleep. He would like to say farewell to his friends, knowing not how long he will be gone for. It gives him guilt. He lives by the night, and lives in the forests and behind the roads. Those he has come to care for live more often by the day, and by either city, or mountain. But he is pulled away by a strange protectiveness; an instinct to shelter this young orphan, for better or for worse. He fears what they might say if he goes to them now and explains his intentions. What if they told him to do otherwise? Back to her parents? Why? To the orphanage? No. He couldn't.

Where will you take her then?

He doesn't know the answer yet.

South.

At least if there was a place for her somewhere in Impiltur, that would be best. Not here where Daemons have been sighted, and desperate men prey on the treasures of the forest to feed their families. Not the Farwater region to the north, devastated as it was by the natural disasters of last winter, and suffering still as the winter weather scarcely sees an end. He has his maps, and he knows the lay of the land, for it is now nigh on two years that Aryen has walked upon those roads - and off them. Two years.

Two years?

The last star disappears from the sky, retreating to make way for the day. Aryen begins to break down the camp. He has always been a habitual and effective labourer, and this is the labour of his lifestyle. It could take him only moments to do it, but now he must forsake his habits. He works quietly; effortfully. Let the girl wake in her own time. Let her rest. The days ahead will be long, and how many of them there will be is as yet unknown to both of them.
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Re: Aryen Caladras - Roads

Postby Copper Dragon » Tue Sep 13, 2016 4:55 pm

The girl that Aryen Caladras has taken solemn custody over lies curled up and deep asleep while the ranger breaks down their camp. She is of dirty blonde hair and a round face; a typical Easting girl, and by the downtrodden quality of her thick clothes, a typical homeless lass.

She stirs eventually on that fateful morning after that fateful night, and she seems to be as shy as her self-proclaimed guardian. After sufficiently lengthy silences, half-nods and mumbles, Aryen would learn that the twelve-year-old is called Malvina, and discover, too, that she does not speak the Common Tongue. Gestures and pointing at things are easy enough to understand, however, and children tend to have a knack for language... supposedly.

The lass whom Aryen has decided to lead to a new home proves to be easily compliant; perhaps too shy and fearful right now to demand answers or deeds. Instead, on that cold autumn morning, the girl looked out at the misty paths that they might take; the south which Aryen Caladras intends to lead her to inviting them in whites, greys and browns, and silent, ever silent snowfall. Will he abandon her at the next village? Will he take her to an immense city? To a dark cave for nightmarish deeds or across the seas?

Time, and Aryen Caladras, will have to tell.
Plays:
Artemis D'Assanthe, Dawnmaster
Udhana, the Kinless
Dhovainithil, Silver Elf
Jhasira of the Bai Kabor, Dawnbringer (deceased)

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Re: Aryen Caladras - Roads

Postby Obsidian Sea » Mon Sep 26, 2016 10:34 am

The fiveday had turned to a tenday trudging through the snow. Even to a Ranger's wit, there was no guessing at the weather anymore. The smart money was upon snow, but it had persisted so unnaturally that a sudden abatement might be in sight, too. But that was a hope to which Aryen Caladras did not cleave. He wished it moreso for Malvina than himself. The journey would go hard by her, but he knew not the extent of her life experiences prior to now. He expected that they included their share of hardship. As with others before her, Aryen exerts himself to ensure the girl meets a relative standard of comfort, without regret for the times when this must come at the sacrifice of his own.

One night, shy of Dorarder, Aryen Caladras contemplates the strange unlikelinesses of life as Malvina rests. Silence was a familiar companion, and if society was the opposite of loneliness, Aryen walked a peculiar path somewhere between such linguistic definitions were his constant allies seemed content to exist in silence. Selûne looked upon him, but he was no Priest worthy of communion with Her. Fenrir was by his side often, yet he was no Druid, and had no tongue to share with the wolf. Now, regarding Malvina with whom he can scarcely share a word, he smiles. It was not a laughing smile, nor one of joy. Contentment? Maybe so. Contentment to accept the smallness of his place in the realms; to accept the choices of others and the accidents of life that seemed to shape his own with a hand of such governance that it felt foolish to resist. It occurred to Aryen that such a philosophy might seem sombre to another - maybe even morbid. He would ask for no more than this though. If he were only a passing influence in Malvina's life, did it matter why or whether he was remembered in the grand scheme of things - or even her life - if it were an influence for the better?

Silence with Malvina was not as simple as it was with Fenrir. There was a restlessness and a self-consciousness in their long silences that he feared Malvina might share. But how could he know? Tentatively, Aryen begins to share the Common tongue with her, indicating to flora, fauna, and the manmade waypoints, half-buried in the snow, which dot The Royal Road and the more shy traveler's passes that he prefers to take, hoping to avoiding interrogation from the few others that might be spread across the main traveling channels. He fosters the lessons of other races when he negotiates the journey with Malvina: at times, he has the patience of an Elf, learned from Celith Galiner; when he must, he demonstrates the firmness of a Dwarf, thinking of Hróin. Beyond the influences of all others, Aryen's perceived duty to Malvina; his solitary wisdom; and his familiarity with the wilderness dictates the course of their journey. Quietly, it brings him comfort - as once it did before Impiltur - to know he can provide, and protect, and he can believe that whatever folly to which he fell in his past, he has grown from it since. In skill, aye, but in character too.

With first light, Aryen Caladras softly rouses Malvina. It would be little more than an hour before they would arrive in Dorarder. He would take her to a tavern there, and they would eat well. He knew not what they would hear, or who they would meet, but perhaps time spent in the settlement would give him some clue of the people's situation, and what he would do next.
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Re: Aryen Caladras - Roads

Postby Copper Dragon » Sat Oct 01, 2016 10:53 am

The girl doesn't pick up the Common Tongue easily, or she stubbornly resists Aryen's teachings. After her initial shy reactions... Malvina seems increasingly mulish, reserved and resentful even when the Ranger clearly attempts to bring her comfort. Malvina eats everything that is offered to her - she is hungry after all - but shows no affection or gratitude for anything else. Her only virtue is that she is curious of Fenrir, Aryen's shaggy lupine companion, and of all the words about fauna and flora, 'wolf' and 'big furry dog' are the ones that she most enthusiastically repeats, whether or not Aryen lets the wild animal in her vicinity.

Aside from that; it does seem like she hates Aryen.

When they arrive at Dorarder, a village of a dozen houses and something vaguely resembling a tavern, Malvina scowls at their surroundings. People look like they are minding their own business, but everyone soon notices the strange new faces that don't belong. Old women look on from by the windowsill or fence; a reclusive stranger with such an unhappy girl? What was to be made of that?

The Ranger and his protege would be able to enter the so-called tavern without anyone speaking to them. Chimes and charms clink in the chilling breeze when they step in, and although there aren't many people inside, there is life - livestock, that is. A few chickens and a trio of pigs wander about inside which no one seems to give heed to. There are a few drinkers by a window playing cards who look over to Aryen with scrutiny and taciturn judgement. Some candles and a small firepit light the interior, illuminating the painted, typically rural, flowery patterns on the walls.

The drinkers don't greet nor talk to Aryen. It is the bartender, a short and wide woman, that comes asking what the Ranger and his charge would like, casting suspicious, studious glances at the lass.

As for news; it doesn't take much conversation to realise the sorry state that Dorarder is in. What youth there was in the village has left for bigger towns, west in particular like Red Bluffs, Hlammach and Lyrabar, and the old who remain don't care for outsiders or anyone. There is work aplenty, but little coin to spare; lodgings, yes. There's talk of Warsword patrols; of two men's bodies found not far from Red Bluffs, they say; of glowing eyes in the frozen fields at night, which only the village fool has seen; and of course now there is talk of this stranger and his girl.

Some mutter, others ask Aryen Caladras directly, or even ask each other within earshot. "Is that yoh' daughter?"
"What's got you coming to Dorarder?" "Came from north-like, didn't you; what's on the road?"
"Strangers only bring trouble. Bad omen, says I."
"That wee calf with him's thin as a reed. Another one soon to pass off into the ground."


And despite such words, the pair could ask for a meal, a drink, or even a place to sleep - though for the latter, some villagers expect Aryen to provide a service rather than coin. Without youth, repair work has fallen aside: roofs and fences need a hand, and there's an old tree out in the fields that ought to be felled and chopped for firewood. Winter's only just coming in earnest, after all.

Is this a place to stay with Malvina? Or a place for her to find a future? Is Dorarder even a place to spend the night?
Plays:
Artemis D'Assanthe, Dawnmaster
Udhana, the Kinless
Dhovainithil, Silver Elf
Jhasira of the Bai Kabor, Dawnbringer (deceased)

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Re: Aryen Caladras - Roads

Postby Obsidian Sea » Tue Oct 04, 2016 1:12 pm

It is an old and resting instinct in Aryen Caladras' mind to take flight from Dorarder, disliking the social exposure that inevitably comes with his disturbance of the small settlement. He remains protectively close to Malvina, though persistence does not eclipse the underlying anxiety concerning her apparent dislike of him. Doubt, a familiar foe, settles in his mind. Perhaps it had been too righteous of him to take the girl into his care? Perhaps he had no right. But what was the alternative for her? Whether the Dalelander would quietly curse his choices at night or not, he was set upon a course to do right by the girl now. He knew well enough that neither remorse nor regret would allow him to revisit the past, and so trepidation would have to be endured ... and the hard path ahead.

He resists doubt, and any other negative machinations they play upon him. If nothing else, perhaps Malvina would prefer to stay in Dorarder and make the company of the Easting locals rather than endure his guardianship any longer. It is a welcome absence from the trials of the life he had come to know since he left Tethyamarvale to work on menial tasks, repairing fences and roofing for the locals - welcome, and familiar. You never forget the principle of hard, honest labour. He did not know how easily he could acquire the confidence of the people of Dorarder, but he concealed the unfavourable cloak that had become a trademark of his appearance elsewhere in Impiltur, knowing it would do naught but incite further mistrust of him.

Strange to his habits and priorities, the Ranger is not without coin to spend in support of his stay, and as much as within the power of the village to supply for them without straining their supplies, Aryen is generous to pay for the meals that will not merely sustain Malvina, but hopefully allow her to gain some stock. The villagers were not wrong: she was thin as a reed, he had noticed. The nation was half-buried in the snow, and food was at its scarcest both in and beyond the settlements. He resented their rightful suspicions that she may not live long, sensitive to perceive their remarks as a criticism upon his guardianship of the girl - and perhaps it made him petty not to see the concern in their remarks, instead inferring the ways in which they might unwittingly have judged the journey that brought he and Malvina towards their village.

"She is not my daughter. She requires a home - a family. I am taking her ... to find one," he states, plainly. Even if he could lie, why should he? Pauses in his speech are not signals of his hesitation, but rather mark the beats of thought between words when he is effortfully willing confidence into his delivery. It was a vague and strange ambition, but it was not one to apologise for. Was it?

He might chop down that old tree if the village yet requires a strong hand to turn to the task. It depended if he would stay or not. In respect of friends that he had made towards the north, he relented from that task in favour of repair work, for though he did not care greatly for The Balance, he respected a few of those who did. In the course of labour, Aryen reverts to his typical anti-socialism, and frequently checks upon Malvina at the tavern or indoors of the house at which he works if such hospitality is extended.

When he can, he makes passive efforts to learn more about what the village fool claims to have seen. The Dalelander's inclination is to doubt whatever such a man would say, prizing the value of his word at the worth his title gives it. Nevertheless, the world is full of trouble, and if Malvina might find a home in Dorarder, he would pursue any suggestion of danger that might capitalise upon that circumstance. And if they were to move on, and find a warmer or more prosperous settlement, so be it. But still he would return this way, and if there was danger to be culled, he did not fear for his life enough to let another risk theirs to cull it.
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Re: Aryen Caladras - Roads

Postby Copper Dragon » Sat Oct 22, 2016 7:52 am

Dorarder's residents are reserved and dour, even for Impilturans, and Aryen's noble goal does not seem to move them - worse, they are made more wary by his intention to give the girl away. To a family? A home? There are empty beds and cottages in Dorarder, it's true; but many empty bellies too. Still, family is everything, and children are precious, and so when Aryen pays for Malvina's meals and wants for her to be taken in at night to rest, the villagers comply to provide all and more, if gruffly and sternly.

In turn, Malvina is stubbornly silent towards her helpers and to Aryen. Alas, her mood does not turn for the better.

The Ranger's help in manual labour earns him from the village more gratitude, more food and longer shelter. The old tree is not chopped down, while the village fool - "Patched", they dubbed him - yammers on to himself about the eyes, and the field-spirits to whom they belong. In the summer, it is known that high noon heralds the coming of dangerous noonwraiths, who kill a man without leaving a wound on their body; in the winter, it is known that the noonwraith's midnight sister waits, hungry for life and warmth. It is known -- to be fairy tales by the villagers, save for the fool, who mumbles that the old tree in the field houses these eyes and these wraiths...

...But, as Aryen is to find out on their fourth evening in Dorarder, the truth was much more simple.

A wolf's howl swims into the night sky outside. Perhaps Aryen has retired for the eve, or he is patrolling or at the inn, or still finishing a chore; it is for him to know. Malvina has already been put to bed at the neighbouring thatched house by this hour; an elderly woman took her in.

But the wolf's howl is joined by a child's scream - one of fright, quickly quenched. Too quickly.

Would Aryen see to the animal out in the snowy, misty distance? Or would he go to the house from whence the scream came? Perhaps another direction altogether?
Plays:
Artemis D'Assanthe, Dawnmaster
Udhana, the Kinless
Dhovainithil, Silver Elf
Jhasira of the Bai Kabor, Dawnbringer (deceased)

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Re: Aryen Caladras - Roads

Postby Obsidian Sea » Tue Oct 25, 2016 12:31 pm

The Dalelander sleeps lightly. Even after the most troubled of experiences had been put to rest in his heart and his mind, Aryen Caladras always found himself in search of sleep more than the next common man. Again, dogged by concern for Malvina and his current undertaking, sleep was an illusive substance. A howling wolf vexes his thoughts, but how could they not have cause to mourn this strange season as much as men do? It rouses him not, resting atop the covers of his bed, as yet remaining clothed and heavy in thought.

Could such a thing as a noonwraith exist? He had thought all the cruelest things of the world to exist by night, but there were times were it was proven to him by his journeys that even in the day safety beyond the copses was hard come by. Aye, the man was a fool, but so too could he be, doubting the existence of many malevolent possibilities: possibilities yet existed. Though the world was, in Aryen's eyes, a small, small place, the only thing which he thought it might supply in endless amount and variety was danger. If a noonwraith, or any sister-danger, existed, it was nothing that he could put an end to with arrow and blade, was it? In any event, it does not seem safe for--

A child's scream. It came quickly to his ear, and vanished just as quickly. If there had been anything feline about the Ranger's personality or build, he might have been said to replicate such a creature's swiftness in his response. As he did not, it could only be attributed to himself and a fierce adrenaline that he whipped himself from the bed, seizing Abzag-Ubrat, a length of rope, and two silvered arrows. He spares no moment for hesitation.

He steps into view of the night sky, and Selûne grants him permission to see. No lantern then needs lifted as Aryen Caladras moves with urgency to the location where he heard the child's scream. Whatever sign of forced entry to the house might exist, he will pursue, using rope if he must to entry on the second storey of the house. If there are no signs of entry, and some wraith might be responsible; or if, some dreaded way, the child was provoked to scream and be silenced by someone from within the house, then it goes against the Ranger's instinct and a moment further he would take to plot what best to do.
Heomar Bloodstone

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Tristan Thalavar
Nathaniel Askovar
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Re: Aryen Caladras - Roads

Postby Copper Dragon » Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:32 pm

The house's front door yields easily to the Ranger's hand or forceful boot. Had the elderly woman forgotten to bar the door, or was something else amiss? Aryen Caladras could enter without resistance, and without hesitation thanks to the Moonmaiden's kiss on his brow - and in the gloom of the thick white-walled living room, he could see much and more. Pots on the wall, chairs, logs, a kettle, garlic and paprika strings, -

- an open footlocker, a fork on the floor, a food-basket with top off, a bed with many blankets tossed about in the other room (without a door to separate it), -

- but not Malvina nor the old woman.

This was their house, was it not? Where? Where were they?
Spoiler:
OOC: The player is requested to make a Perception and Search check. Alternatively, if the PC opts to take his time, he can 'take 10', meaning 10 + skill modifier will be taken as final result.
Plays:
Artemis D'Assanthe, Dawnmaster
Udhana, the Kinless
Dhovainithil, Silver Elf
Jhasira of the Bai Kabor, Dawnbringer (deceased)


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