< Fall Of Darkness | Ex Pulplogs | Due South >
ST More triumphant then they have been in many weeks, the Circle makes their way out of the dark glaciers and back into the crisp, clean chill of the Northern village. The walrus-looking guide is no where to be found and everyone is still as suspicious and distrustful as they were before the Circle left, but aside from that everything is fine. Better then fine.
ST With a bit of work Carmine and Myrrh are able to find that Corve and Sun returned here some time ago after Corve took his daughter away from the dangerous battle in the glaciers. Now Sun is resting in the spare bedroom of a widow's house. Corve's silver was enough to warm her heart to the little girl. Xar went up to keep her company while the others talked in the widow's sitting room.
ST The widow herself had excused herself to stay with her sister's family for a day or two. She was not impolite..but she clearly didn't want to be around any kind of Exalted or magical beasts like Xar. It was probably fortunate she wasn't present when Falling Darkness was dragged into the house.
ST The mostly-dead Abyssal is now under Carmine's watch as everyone else takes the chance to get warm, clean and healthy after their battles in the Frozen City and the long trek back.
Captain Oteki takes the opportunity to acquire a warm, damp towel of some sort in order to wash the smear of dried blood off of his cheek, and take a close look at the eyepatch now bolted to his face. And also, to have some warming tea.
Corve is wary of the Abyssal. He's had his rifle pointed at Falling Darkness' head ever since the Abyssal was dragged into the house. Otherwise? He looks quite calm. He's sitting in a comfortable chair with tea in one hand and the rifle in the other. "On the one hand, I'm glad I got Sunshine out of there. But I really wish I could've been there." Itchy trigger finger on Corve today.
Myrrh "Frankly i'm just glad to get those swords away from him...too bad Oteki seems to have found a new...toy." Hastily reshaped some of darknesses wretched souls into some nice essence sapping chains. He shouldn't be going anywhere.
Carmine regards Oteki with a frown as Myrrh mentions that again, studying his face once more. She really wasn't sure that was healthy.
d- -b sticks up a finger in protest, taking a cross-legged seat on a nice overstuffed chair. "Ah, ah! Multiple new toys, lad." he corrects, proceeding to illustrate the point by carefully wrapping Darkness' former coverings around his arms.
Captain Oteki sticks up a finger in protest, taking a cross-legged seat on a nice overstuffed chair. "Ah, ah! Multiple new toys, lad." he corrects, proceeding to illustrate the point by carefully wrapping Darkness' former coverings around his arms.
Myrrh "I really don't think that's a good idea, do you really want to have your arms removed too?"
Corve eyes Oteki with a small grimace. "Why would you want something from this wretch?" Corve asks the pirate.
Myrrh "Well it's already eatten his eye as you can tell from the constant grimace and all the blood..."
Corve sighs and just shakes his head. "Did he say anything before you captured him? Anything of interest?"
Captain Oteki muses on that question for a moment, pulling off his torn and stained shirt to wrap the black linens around his many-scarred torso as well. "Actually," he notes in passing, "Th' pain an' th'blood stopped a few hours ago. An' I suppose that in addition to th' childlike joy o'acquirin' new toys, there be a certain dramatic correctness to takin' th' tools o' one's enemies in order to use them in th'defense o'those one cares abo
Captain Oteki t."
Myrrh "I just hope he doesn't have some sort of control over the things."
Captain Oteki pauses. "Mmm. I hadn't thought o'that. Corve, if 'e starts exertin' some sort o'evil control over me mind, shoot 'im."
Corve would smack his own face with his palm, if both his hands weren't occupied. "Fine. Did he say anything?"
Myrrh "I think he's been a bit...groany lately. Maybe I should have some of the bugs patch him up.
Corve eyes Myrrh. "Don't you dare. The longer he's... in this state, the better."
Myrrh "Well we aren't going to get much out of him right now then."
Corve "Thus why I am asking if he said anything before you caught him."
Captain Oteki amuses himself by wrapping himself in black from the neck down, and then pulling his clothes and boots back over top. After doing so, he returns to sitting around drinking tea, and looking over the steel bracelet and serpent necklace he also stole off of Falling Darkness. "I'm thinkin' that for th'sake o'me own safety, that I'll be askin' th'Big Dragon t'figure out what these are for before anyone goes puttin' 'em on."
Captain Oteki thinks back. "I'd tell ye, lad, but I didn't get there until the end. Just enough time to finish 'im off. Sorry."
Carmine "He didn't say much. Insulted you, insulted me. Until I opened him almost all the way up."
Corve nods slowly and sighs, leaning against his seat and taking a sip of his tea. "The problem is, I don't think he's going to talk no matter how much I torture him." Corve frowns. "We need another means."
Myrrh The talking should be easy. I'm sure maybe a passion morray might be able to probe his recent thoughts and plans.
Myrrh "My real concern is our next move."
Carmine "Well, if we can make him talk, maybe he can tell us."
Corve nods.
Myrrh "Give me a night then. I'll need to do some research on the right kind of demon."
Captain Oteki "What yer next move be ain't entirely my concern,
Captain Oteki I'll be there t'help whatever ye decide. For th'moment, however, I be tired an' I think I may have frostbitten me manly bits, so I'm thinkin' now be a good time fer me to retire to bed fer a time."
Corve raises a brow at the pirate and then gives the man a nod. "Good night, Oteki." Then he eyes Falling Darkness, and finishes his tea. "Now let's see about waking him up..."
Captain Oteki exits, stage right.
Falling Darkness lays all mangled and such.
Corve glances at Carmine, smiling softly. "Can you do anything to help him regain consciousness without fixing him up too much?" Corve's gun is pointed right at the Abyssal's temple.
Carmine finds a painful but not too serious wound and presses down with the tip of her foot. In her considered medical opinion, the pain should bring him around pretty sharpish.
Falling Darkness grunts and opens his eyes. Well, eye. The place where his other eye was remains all nasty and withered. But if there was an eye there, it sure would be open and glaring. Though obviously now awake, the Abyssal refuses to say anything to his captors.
Corve grins down at the Abyssal, his gun moving to dig the end of the rifle against the man's withered eye. "Hey. Have a nice nappy nap?"
Falling Darkness glares evily at Corve with his good eye.
Corve jabs his gunpoint into the Abyssal's bad eye. "Okay. I can see you're not feeling all that cooperative. I suppose we're going to have to do this a much less pleasant way, then." He cocks the hammer back, and then smiles. "What do we have to do to make sure the Black Serpent doesn't escape its prison?"
Falling Darkness grunts and rasps out two short words "Kill it."
Corve ponders this a moment, and then says, "And in which way or ways can we go about effectively killing the Black Serpents?"
Corve Serpent*
Falling Darkness glares at Corve silently, struggling. Despite his best efforts he grates out the words. "Go to it's home. And take the weapons from the sunken island. Kill the master slave before the Serpent can withdraw itself."
Corve smiles a little and commits this to memory. Finally, he looks at Carmine, and then back at Falling Darkness. "How do we stop what's happening to Carmine Elegance?"
Falling Darkness smiles, not even trying to stop the answer. "You can't."
Corve frowns, and asks a final question, without any magical assistance: "Do you want to die?"
Falling Darkness refuses to answer Corve, simply taking satisfaction in the knowledge that Carmine's change is inevitable.
Corve glances at Carmine. "You want to do it, or shall I?"
Carmine "You can." She smiles.
Corve smiles at her, and doesn't look down before he pulls the trigger.
Falling Darkness is still smiling, even as Corve pulls the trigger and blows the Deathknight's head into a cloud of bloody motes. The body collapses, finally limp and harmless. Though anticlimactic, it is somewhat soothing that there is no explosion of dark power or scream of an angry ghost being released as Falling Darkness dies. His body is just laying there.
Falling Darkness is, at last, defeated.
Carmine kisses Corve, very firmly.
ST The widow isn't going to be happy about the new bloodstain on her floor. Or the death in her home. Especially an Exalted Death. She'll be even less happy if the Hungry Ghost returns in a few days and shreds her into bits.
Corve kisses Carmine back, smiling against her lips for a moment. "We got enough information out of him, I think." Even though it wasn't all pleasant. Corve isn't stupid. "Let's burn the body."
Carmine nods "We should do it properly." she pauses to consider "... What is properly?"
Corve glances at Myrrh. "That'd be his ken, love."
ST Even with Myrrh occupied, the body is gathered and Corve spreads some salt on the blood stain where Falling Darkness' head used to be. Unsure if they should take the body outside and burn it there or take it further away, they decide simply to wrap it for later movement. When Myrrh gets back from examining the artifacts, he'll be able to help them figure out what to do with it.
Carmine "So," she says, pointedly turning away from the body. "We have the weapons from the sunken island, I guess ... so now we have to go back to the temple."
Corve nods to Carmine softly, sighing. "If what we retrieved is enough, then yes." He puts his rifle away, wrapping his arms around her.
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