Preparing For War: Enter The Ragman

[Mathias Blackwood]

2 Cylus 720 | Mathias Blackwood | A Dream

The sudden outburst from the Ragman startled Mathias an provoked a jump from the man but it didn't break the trance he'd fallen into when he'd begun to stare into the water. Mathias wasn't even looking at Kasoria when the killer of many rounded on him. He didn't need to think very hard when the Ragman demanded it. He knew the way out. He saw every face that floated by use it. They came up, and then they went down. Mathias gestured to the water. "Do you see it too?" He asked as he took a step closer to the edge. He never specified what he was asking about, he didn't know how to explain what they saw when they looked into the water. But he knew that they went somewhere when they went away. Mathias closed his eyes and stepped off the edge into the water. It began to shimmer- the facing vanishing entirely as Mathias brought his other leg in.

It was about knee deep for the first few seconds and then suddenly Mathias dropped into the shimmering water, vanishing completely from Kasoria's view. They would remain separated in this way unless Kasoria did as Mathias had, but once Mathias was gone the shimmering faded and the faces returned.

Mathias found himself stepping out of a tree- complete dry, in a graveyard with tombstones bearing the names of those who had owned the faces they'd seen. It appeared to be the middle of the trial and the graveyard was anything but menacing... it seemed almost peaceful. He looked around for Kasoria who he couldn't find and then turned towards the tree he'd stepped out of. There was a hole in it just large enough for him but a black shadow draped across the hole blocking any light from getting inside. Deciding that it was too spooky for him to mess with, Mathis continued looking for Kasoria. "Karim? Karim where are you?"

[Kasoria]

"I,ah... I wouldn't do that if I were-"

Kasoria didn't even get the whole sentence out before what had to happen, happened. Bad enough the underground river was showing them the faces of dead people. Bad enough it was showing them faces of those still living, those who mattered to them both. "Do you see it too," the boy had asked, which told Kasoria no, it wasn't just him. The Raggedy Man wanted answers but all he got was a stupid boy who thought the best way to escape was to step in-

-and before Kasoria could reach in and drag his dumb arse back out-

"Shit!"

Mathias vanished under the gushing, stinking water like he'd been yanked under by a giant. The time it took for him to blink, that's all it was. Standing knee-deep one moment, gone the next. Kasoria backpedaled instinctively, every step drawing fresh chuckles from... from everywhere. He called out the boy's name, over and over, feeling more and more stupid each time he did. Of course he wasn't coming back. Of course he was... dead?

Or somewhere else.

Kasoria licked dry lips and weighed his options. He could walk this maze for breaks, for trials and not find anything but the same stones under his feet, the same faces greeting his eyes. The only way out was to do something not planned, not expected. Mathias had walked for a pace or two, ground under him solid... and now it was deep as the ocean? No... No, there was more to it than that. The Raggedy Man exhaled and rubbed his face, harder and harder until he drew it away fast with a snarl.

"Fuckin' unbelievable... a'right then."

He waded in. Feeling the stink and the icy chill creep into his bones. Waded out a pace or two and-

-then the stones under him were gone, and all his weight fell straight down-

-water closing over his head, but not just closing, pulling, dragging, falling as if he'd landed from some distant ledge-

-and he couldn't breath and his eyes were open and the faces swirled around him and around and voices screamed and he screamed back because you were dead you were all dead he did not suffer the dead-

"Karim? Karim, where are you?"

Mathias found "Karim" on his knees in front of one of those trees. Hole he'd appeared through carved into it, though it looked more like a natural opening than anything wrought by ax or pick or blade. The little man was sputtering and coughing up water, until he realized nothing was coming out. It was just heavy, wracking breaths... and no water dripped from his clothes. The Etzori studied his dry hands, dry arms, dry legs... then he looked around.

"Of course. A fucking graveyard." He hauled himself upright with a grunt, ignoring Mathias' proffered helping hand. Instead he looked around, until his eyes settled on the nearest stone. "Seems t'be a fuckin' theme."

He nodded to the stone. Into it was set the name "SILVESTER", and Kasoria gave a lopsided grin as he read it.

"I remember 'im. That was an all-nigher, 'im an' 'is lads. Still fuckin' smell that house burnin'..."

Not the time for nostalgia.

Kasoria looked around the rest of the bone orchard. Stones and markers and plots as far as they could see, only there was no... macabre feeling, as there'd been before. Not like the sewer, where mocking laughter and accusing faces followed them incessantly. This place was clear and bright under a blue sky. There was... a peace here. A tranquility, where the dead truly rested and did not bother the living. Kasoria walked along the row and stopped in front of one. Mathias could not read the name, but he saw Kasoria's face... soften, if only minutely. The man sighed and patted the top of it.

"Y'knew what'd happen, mate. Y'knew what it'd cost."

The voice growled the same warning in his head and Kasoria turned to the boy. He spread his arms wide and approached him.

"Seems like yer carryin' around a lotta guilt, lad. Lotta' musin' on the lost an' the departed. Want some free advice?" He stopped and rested a callused finger on Mathias' chest. Staring into his eyes with those cold black orbs. "Stow that shite. Don't do fuck all but slow yeh down when yeh need t'be fast."

[Mathias Blackwood]

2 Cylus 720 | Mathias Blackwood | A Dream

Mathias jogged over to Kasoria the moment he saw him come out of one of the trees and he did offer a hand to help the man up but his offer of aid was ignored so Mathias lowered his hand back down to his side. He'd looked around the graveyard a little bit in the time he'd been stranded and seen some names he remembered. Yet it was the missing name that troubled Mathias more than the ones he saw. He couldn't find a tombstone marked with Perseus's name and for some reason that was worse than if he'd seen one. The idea that he had set a beast loose on the world and that the beast was still out there haunted Mathias's dreams to this trial... literally as was evidenced by the fact they were in one such dream.

Yet it was when Kasoria prodded Mathias's chest and so boldly called him out on his regret that Mathias seemed to steel himself. It wasn't quite that he had steeled himself against the regret as much as it was that he had steeled himself against Kasoria's advice. "Look around you, I did stow it." Mathias said "I stowed it here. All of it." Mathias gestured around at the dreamscape before them. What was this if not the result of a lifetime of repressed emotion? Repressed regrets and losses. Mathias buried everything he could bare to face and in his admittedly short life that had been a great number of things. The abuse at his father's hand which had turned him into a mage. The lives he took. The people he'd killed for no reason other than his inability to think of another way. This was where he buried them, in his mind.

It had been Kasoria's decision to enter that burial place. Mathias turned his head to a tombstone he knew for a fact did not belong among the others. It read "Sylvia" and represented the relationship Mathias had killed to move on with his life. The woman who owned the name lived, but Mathias knew almost nothing of her now. That was the sacrifice he had chosen to make... he thought he'd known the full sum of the pain it would cause him but he'd been wrong. After a few second Mathias continued speaking. "Why are you here? How did you get here?" Mathias asked, finally accepting the figure as more than a construct of his mind. Now that Mathias believed Kasoria was an independent agent, he felt as if his secrets were being read through and he wanted to know why.

[Kasoria]

Kasoria snorted in amusement and made a show of looking around. At the graves of every soul, every murder, every killing. Every life taken, for whatever reason. All of them lovingly frozen in time and memory. Put to rest and remembered, even deified with their own personal headstone. Some were old and moss-covered; some still shone as if the ceremony was but a few breaks before. The killer shook his head and turned away from the boy.

"Oh, aye. Looks that fuckin' way..."

He kept walking, kept wandering, but the dream quickly became tedious to him. It would have been curious to see how this boy collected his dead, but he didn't need to be reminded of his own. Oh, sure, there were regrets here and there, but nothing that would wrench at his heart or bring him down low to kneeling, weeping recriminations. Kasoria had no time for such pointless guilt. He'd killed, over and over, until a couple became a score became a few hundred and then he'd stopped trying to keep count. One corpse was much the same as the next and besides, if it wasn't him, it would have likely been someone else.

One way to justify it, he thought, and immediately snorted. Aye. Because it's true.

Self-awareness may have niggled at Kasoria's soul from time to time, but it never stuck a dagger into him. He just didn't have the parts present to enable such a wound.

"Why are you here? How did you get here?"

"Place looked interestin'," the Raggedy Man said honestly, swiping his fingers across a grave and rubbing them together. He could almost taste the dust on the stones. "Yer dream, I mean. From the outside. S'what it looks like t'me. Shitloads a' doors under water. That's me Veil. Yers probably looks different..." There was a silence, and when Kasoria looked up, it was into incredulous eyes. "... ah. Forgot. Not a dreamwalker, are yeh? Well... conversation for later. But aye, it looked interestin', so I walked into yer dream."

The killer shrugged his shoulder. Question of whether or not that was a gross violation of a man's most inner thoughts never really crossing his mind.

"Turned out t'be more fuckin' trouble than it's worth, but can't have fun every time, can yeh?" He looked around again. Quite a full orchard, and most of the markers were for his own life. But there were plenty here. More than plenty. Too many, almost. "Fuck d'youse do, anyway? Sell yer skill wi' that bow? Musta' been doin' it fer a while. Got a fuckin' platoon a' ghosts laid down 'ere..."

[Mathias Blackwood]

2 Cylus 720 | Mathias Blackwood | A Dream

The Ragman spoke in terms unfamiliar to Mathias who admittedly stopped listening when he lost track of what Kasoria was saying. He didn't know what he had expected from the man who had leapt from the shadows at him. He didn't know why he had expected any of it to make sense. But while Kasoria spoke, Mathias found his eyes wandering to the many graves sprawling out before them. They couldn't have all been his... surely he hadn't killed this many people? Unfortunately there came a time when he stopped counting. A bandit here, a corrupt solider there... in his line of work you couldn't focus too much on who and why so much as you had to focus on the how. How they died was all the mattered and the worst part was that it was also all that Mathias tended to remember after long enough... and he was still comparatively young.

Then Kasoria began simplifying things so that Mathias could understand and as a result he reclaimed the young archer's attention. Mathias grinned slightly at Kasoria's exclamation that the effort had been far more trouble than it was worth before turning to what Mathias did for work. For some reason the idea of being in a dream made the man who still held out some hope that this would all be forgotten when he woke think that he could be more honest.

"Well you were more or less right. I'm a bounty hunter and a killer if it pays well enough. Based on how quick you were with your sword, I'd guess you've been doing the same for longer. Or am I wrong?" Mathias inquired. It wasn't like he went out looking to kill people but sometime those were the only jobs you could find. Sometimes bounty hunting wasn't all that different than killing for coin... it was just more legal. Mathias looked around again, this time at the area surrounding the graveyard rather than the graveyard itself. The picture began to come together for Mathias- the fear this dream sought to provoke in Mathias. "Are we in the stormlands?" Mathias asked, he recognized the ground and the vegetation from what he'd seen in the waking world. "I was going to Storm's Edge... I've definitely seen that area before." Mathias said, gesturing vaguely west.

[Kasoria]

"Hmm..."

That was all Mathias got for his admission. Which was as good as telling the boy how Kasoria himself fitted into that world. One killer introducing himself to another... why get worked up about such a thing? The stonework was much more interesting to him. His black eyes flickered under the brim of his hat, and he gave Mathias a crooked smile.

"Aye."

Contrary bastard.

Fuck it, his dream almost killed me.

Vagueness notwithstanding, Kasoria knew he was dealing with someone who didn't need too much spelled out. It was clear the boy had an eye for men in their world. The way they moved, the weapons they carried, the brusqueness of their nature and the distance they kept from their fellow man. It was a rare sellsword who could carouse and revel like a brother, then cut his brother's heart out for coin a song later. Kasoria knew as much from personal experience.

"Are we in the stormlands?"

"Dun' think this' anywhere, mate," Kasoria said languidly, reaching the edge of the graveyard and resting his arms on the rusted metal fence. Beyond it was naught but plains and prairies. Desolate, but not barren. "Got shite growin' out there, though, so... doubtful."

"I was going to Storm's Edge... I've definitely seen that area before."

That got a quick look from the Etzori. Storm's Edge. He remembered that place. Fates, what a weird sojourn that had been. Tossed through a portal by a dying mage, landing near death in Andaris city... pressed into a murder by an old... not even friend, actually, and then fleeing the city... but the bounty-hunting? He remembered that most of all. The details, the process, the trials and the tests... they were most like what his life was like on the other side of the ocean. And Storm's Edge had been where he'd ended it, bearing a donkey covered in heads, so he could prove that Kev the Butcher and his band were no longer a problem for the good folk of Mistral Woods.

Paid well, too.

"Hmmm..."

That was something he remembered, too. He scratched under his chin and did his best to sound nonchalant.

"What's yer business there? Joinin' the Knights?"

[Mathias Blackwood]

2 Cylus 720 | Mathias Blackwood | A Dream

"I'd be a shit knight. The Flameborn are going to overrun it and they've called for help. I'm traveling- at least I was traveling, with a group of people, some fighters, some craftsmen, heading to Storm's Edge." Mathias looked around the graveyard, it was vast but it was no where near as large as it could be. Mathias could see where the graves gave way to the landscape. He didn't know if it would have been a larger graveyard after the Flameborn overran Storm's Edge or not and he didn't want to find out. With his limited skills he thought he could make a difference and so he had volunteered to go. But he couldn't admit that to this 'Karim.' "If the Flameborn overrun Storm's Edge, they'll overrun Rharne and I've been finding good work here so I want to stop that from happening."

Mathias put his foot on one of the gravestones and slowly kicked it over out of curiosity. He wanted to see what would happen if he disturbed the memorial- but nothing did. The gravestone itself crumbled when it hit the ground but nothing else happened. Mathias frowned, disappointed in the result. "I heard the Knights pay well and I figured I'd have to fight the Flameborn sooner or later- I sure as hell wasn't going to run, so yeah, I got with a group of travelers and have been on the road for a little too long." Because they insisted on stopping in every village along the way to gather more volunteers but Mathias wasn't going to say that either. He didn't mind because it gave him time to practice his bow skills and his magic- magic! Mathias looked down at his hands with the glowing silvery veins shining through his skin and he looked around for one of the trees.

What would his spark say the tree was made out of it he used his magic on it? Mathias walked over towards one of the trees and placed his hand on it, but he didn't do anything yet. He turned to look at Kasoria, temporarily distracted by a question that popped into his head. "Have you ever been there?"

[Kasoria]

Not just us getting invaded, it seems.

Kasoria couldn't help the swell of dark satisfaction that rose in him when he heard that Rharne was under attack from outsiders, too. Misery loved company, after all, and he was growing steadily tired of foreigners sneering at the woes of Etzos. Especially those who prostrated themselves before the same breed of mutant abomination that had tried to snuff out the Free City. So, Rharne and their priests and slaves were under attack? And what was that? The Immortals they prayed to weren't around to help them? Weren't lifting a finger.

Good. Teach them a fucking lesson.

"Yer still travelin'," he said eventually, deciding it impolitic to air those previous thoughts. He scooped down a handful of stones and started slinging them at the markers. Picking them at random, testing his aim. "Yer dreamin', remember? Yer mind's here, yer body's sleepin' in camp wi' the rest a' the sods you've been onna' road with." A stone pinged on a marker and the Raggedy Man shrugged. "Dun' worry, s'not easy t'wrap yer mind around. Took me a while, too."

Pay. That was the word he was waiting for. Coin. Compensation. Consideration. Money. He'd lived several seasons as a man with a cause, and when the cause was dead and the great secret war over, he was nothing but poorer from it all. Were he a younger man with no attachments, that would have meant little, even as an Etzori. But he was neither young, nor unattached. There was a child waiting for him, somewhere west of Etzos and east of Hiladrith. He needed to provide, and until he could find some clean graft for himself, well...

"Have you ever been there?"

"Hmm?" He muttered to himself and then shrugged again. Picking out a new marker. "Storm's Edge? Aye. While back. Went there t'collect on a bounty. Dour buncha' cunts, were those knights, but they looked like they know how t'fight. Just the sorta' bastards I'd want manning the walls." The stone went wide and the little man kissed his teeth in annoyance. He flicked a quick, up-and-down glance at Mathias before going on. "Must be shorthanded if there takin' the likes a' youse. Folks that ain't knights, I mean. Bounty killers an' the like. Wankers didn't seem too happy t'have me breathin' their air when last I was there..."

He was quiet as he waited for a reply, but not in his head. This was a risk, and he knew it. The Knights fought for code and honor and shite he couldn't care less about, because it wasn't his home, or his people. Flameborn (whatever the fuck they were) could munch the whole kingdom and Kasoria would shrug his shoulders. But a chance to make some coin, in a place where he wasn't know, or largely forgotten... that was something he couldn't turn down.

"They tell yeh what the rate was? These Knights yeh've been runnin' around tryin' t'recruit for? An' how many d'ya have so far?"

[Mathias Blackwood]

2 Cylus 720 | Mathias Blackwood | A Dream

The reminder that he was dreaming helped Mathias figure out what he wanted to do a little. What would happen if he tried to go to sleep in a dream? He didn't exactly want to test that in a graveyard but it was a thought he had all the same. Mathias saw Kasoria tossing stones and so he picked some up as well. Only while Kasoria seemed content to toss them with a certain grace, Mathias threw them at gravestones with large, winding throws. He wanted to put the small stones through the horrid reminders of the past but every time the small stone hit the grave, it shattered.

Mathias would have taken insult at what Kasoria said about them being desperate enough to accept his help but Kasoria (or Karim) was quick to explain what he meant. "I don't know if desperate begins to explain whats happening there, but I've heard it's bad." Without having seen the keep, he couldn't imagine the damage that had been done to it or the knights... but as he tried to it seemed almost as if more graves were sprouting in the graveyard. Or had they always been there?

How much are they paying? How would Mathias answer that without exposing himself as soft? He didn't want to admit that he was volunteering but he found himself slowly backing into that corner. "Paying me enough that I left Rharne to come help. You can negotiate your own pay, that's not my job. Not that it matters, I'm dreaming remember? None of this," Mathias gestured around "is real." Kas might have noticed Mathias didn't say how many volunteers he was traveling with. Part of it was suspicion that this might have been a set up and part of it was that Mathias had never counted them before.

[Kasoria]

Negotiate. With the Knights. Fucking lovely.

Kasoria didn't try to hide his at the notion. Wouldn't have made much difference in how he looked, anyway. His resting expression seemed perpetually between Irritated and Unimpressed. But... he reminded himself that he had experience going for him, and not just with his blades. They knew him there, and he knew their ways... or as much as he needed to. They didn't like his kind. They fought and died for honor, not coin. But they were true to their word, even to a man like him. If a bounty was posted and proven, they would pay. For the defense of their first defense against the Wastelands, for a real fight, against an army, not just a rabble of bandits...

Aye. They'll pay. One way or another.

"Youse lemme worry about," he said, then smiled thinly as Mathias scoffed away their little imaginary world. "Nah. It's real. It's jus' not in the wakin', y'ken?"

Before the boy could answer, Kasoria strode over and offered his hand. He knew how he looked, and the thought made him smile even wider. Hardly the most trustworthy of sources but hey, what did it matter? Wasn't like it was real, was it?

"Take me hand, lad..."

Eventually, Mathias did. Kasoria cocked his head to one side as he looked in the boy's eyes. Then he closed his own and inhaled sharply, as if summoning some power from within him. Not far from the truth, actually. For a moment Mathias' palm would prickle, then burn. He tried to pull it away but Kasoria held tight. Long enough for the Brand to sizzle into his skin, like it had done onto his own at Llyr's hand, seasons ago. Just as the pain became enough to register with the archer, and he thought about struggling properly, Kasoria let go-

-and Mathias would see the faint, fading, vanishing glow of a ring on the palm of his hand.

"I've marked yeh now," Kasoria said simply, as if that explained and condoned everything. "Wakin' or Dreamin', I can find yeh. Like where yeh are right now. Tomorrow, yeh'll see me again. All the time I'll need to gather me gear, me steel, supplies. Then I'll come find yeh." The Raggedy Man chuckled at the boy's shocked expression, the questions massing but unspoken in his eyes. "I'll answer yer queries later, boy. Fer now, less jus' say that yeh've got one more volunteer..."