Background noise

[Jack Rothwell]

He was slung unceremoniously into a nearby cell by a pair of the sturdier guards the gallows had to offer. Gabriel's back slammed into the iron of a ricky cot and forced the breath out his lungs. He didn't bother to get back up, he'd seen enough of the routine abuse that took place in the establishment to know standard protocal among the guards in situations like these was to spit through the bars at the first flash of defiance and beat the convicts until their arms got tired at the second. Gabriel was hardly squeamish at the prospect of a little violence, but it would be time wasted that could be better acquired finding his mark, Samuel Riekstien, a former bandit chief who was days at best from a hanging.

Gabriel pushed himself upright against the bed, closed his eyes and let the insults from the men wash over him in a wave. He recalled everything he knew about the place and went over it in detail, the grills that could be pried open, the number of guards typically on duty during the day and night, what paths they followed, how often they needed to report in. Details, details...

"...and you're the son of a whore who fucked his..."

Thinking was a much easier task since Aleron had taken barbaric liberties with his unconscious body. If Gabriel thought hard enough about them, he could feel the pulse of a half dozen little stone-shapes lodged within his mass. The way he'd had it explained to him; the stones were woven with an ancient spell, a defensive connection of energy, an internal barrier which held it's shape with regenerative magic. The effect on the mind was clarity of thought, and an acceptance of the necessities for achieving a goal.

The effect on the body was simply a wonder.

"...not worth our time. I'd watch over both shoulders, murdering scum!"

Spit hit his boots. Meaningless. He'd kill them both later if the chance arose. Finding Samuel was all that mattered. Payment for insults would wait.

OOC Open invitation here for other writers to spawn a cellmate for Gabriel./OOC

[Alberich]

"Floor's cleaner than the bed," said a voice. Looking over, Gabriel saw a tall, thin-faced, handsome, dark-haired man sitting in a relaxed position on a cloak in the corner. His travelling clothes showed a little sign of the abuse he'd taken, but his manner was calm and aloof. The stranger waved and nodded in a friendly way. "Jack's the name - Jack Gallow. Kind of ironic, yes?"

[OOC: Want to create a new thread for this? Maybe "Port Lorrel - Prison Break"?]

[Graybeard]

"I've got them again," Haniko Goto announced, "but they've moved. Somewhere north of Goriel, in the mountains. Hard to be sure where."

The two Tsuirakuans looked at each other. This was not altogether welcome news. Like most Tsuirakuans, neither Goto nor Arsoro Kurou had any particular desire to be higher above sea level than the sky city itself, and they certainly didn't look forward to the prospects of traveling into such rugged country, particularly if they would have to be traveling light, without the usual array of Tsuirakuan gadgetry. There was also the challenge of simply getting there.

Peregin Bauti took in their evident discomfort, smiling to herself, but then some of the implications started to sink in. That wasn't her kind of country, either. For one thing, she was a Rinkai, and hers were people of the seashores. Not for them were the cold expanses of the high country, particularly that far north. And there was another thing ...

"Getting close to troll country," she said, then snickered. "Wouldn't it be just too ironic if they got eaten by trolls before we could get to them?"

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC This takes place during Goriel and beyond part 5./OOC

The place was a snow capped mountain range some dozen miles north of the city of Goriel. It was a wooded area, hundred of yards from the nearest visible road.

A bird's eye view would have presented an interesting sight for an observer, the stark contrast of a thick white line that marked a small avalanche clashed sharply with the green of the leaves and the grey of the stones and gravel that were the ground of the place. Following the line, the observer would see it's abrupt end; a ledge which marked a thirty foot drop to a thick patch of trees. Following it down, a person would have seen the broken branches something had fallen through, at the bottom, jutting out from a pile of snow, they would have seen fingertips, a nose, and a tuft of black hair, and noticed the gentle rise and fall of something breathing under the icy mass.

Suddenly the breathing noise become more urgent, the pile shifted, revealing a man who propped himself up on an elbow, gasping and wheezing harshly.

Eli didn't know how long he'd been out but, judging from the numbness of his body, it had been a while. If he'd been in a position to think clearly at that moment he'd have considered how lucky he was to still be alive.

He hadn't seen who'd thrown the rock spell and disrupted the glyph he'd drawn to take him home. All he knew was that the resulting explosion from the clashing magic had set off the avalanche and sent him tumbling down the slopes, enveloped in a cacophony of noise and white and grey. Even the barrier he'd barely gotten up, even the amulet which had lent him power to boost the spell, hadn't been enough to protect him for long. He'd been buffeted, rolled, slammed and pushed off the final ledge after the spell had collapsed and subjected him to the fury of nature.

The last thing he could recall was a looming branch cracking off his head and putting his lights out, and now, this.

Eli reached out with the arm underneath him and clawed at the ground, trying to pull himself out from under the snowy weight which covered most of his body. His other limbs were too numb to cooperate at that moment. After a couple of minutes which stretched out like an eternity, the Ralkin finally cleared the rocky snow, panting and coughing, and finally brought himself to look at the damage.

"Oh..." He turned his gaze away, biting back the urge to scream. In a calmer mood, he might have thanked whatever Gods were listening that the feeling hadn't yet come back to the rest of his body.

But the look of it, his left arm had taken the worst of the impact, it was twisted at an ugly angle and clearly broken in three places. The ribs underneath it looked wrong, as if someone had whacked them with a hammer. The leg too, was capped off by an ankle turned almost ninety degrees from where it should have been. The final touch was the wetness on his warming face which signaled a sizable gash running down the side of it.

Eli propped himself back up, turned his head, and vomited.

[Jack Rothwell]

'Aleron...'

The Ralkin leader breathed a sigh of relief, he closed his eyes and sent a message back to his student.

'What happened? The spell died.'

'Someone... broke the glyph. Hurt... bad.'

'This is what your trust has earned you.' Aleron sent back, with more than a little venom. 'Stop feeling sorry for yourself, fix yourself, and get back here.'

'You sympathy... is appreciated, you... old... fuck.'

The Ralkin leader smiled, if Eli was angry enough to curse at him, the chances were he was strong enough to make it back in one piece.

'Hurry up. Things are moving forward.'

The link went dead. The old man sat down and began to wait.

[Graybeard]

The two Tsuirakuans turned withering glares on the ranger, not that she particularly cared. "We will not speak of trolls," Haniko Goto said icily. "You said you have assets that you can use to get us close to our subjects. Please elaborate."

Beneath her smug exterior, Bauti was becoming aware that she'd perhaps gone just a tiny bit beyond her authority. The Peregins' travel-platform network extended into the Northern Confederacy and beyond, of course. There'd been some gaps in the coverage for decades that had never seemed worth fixing (it had never occurred to the majority that the pro-half-elf protectors of Santuariel might have something to do with those gaps), but she was pretty sure that there was a platform somewhere in the hills near Goriel. However, she'd have to do some checking on where. Bending the rules enough to transport these two point-to-point was one thing. Exposing them to the entire Peregin network was another.

"We have our state secrets, as you do," she answered levelly. "I do not pry into the full extent of your resources. Please grant me the same courtesy. I have to go check on something to make sure we can use the particular resource I have in mind. That'll take a day or so. Then we'll have another day, maybe two, of cross-country travel to where our friends are, so we'll need some gear for overnighting in the mountains." She shivered at the thought, but the prospect of revenge warmed her blood back up and put a smirk back on her face. "If you can gather that up while I'm making sure the resource is available, I'll meet you back here tomorrow, same time, same place ... and then we can go a-hunting."

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC This takes place during 'Port Lorrel-Prison break' thread./OOC

"How are you feeling?"

"Like shit." Eli certainly matched his description. The half-elf stood lopsidedly in the Ralkin's home, his left arm hung limply at his side as if he didn't have the strength to lift it. He put a hand to his mouth and coughed harshly, exposure to the cold had sickened him on top of everything else.

Aleron gave his apprentice an assessing look and gestured for him to sit down. The younger half-elf made no argument, he collapsed wearily at the central chamber's long table and tilted his head back. He stared with a glazed expression at the ceiling. He didn't see the flash of sympathy which crossed the Ralkin leader's face.

The old man stood at his side and began to fix the rest of the damage that Eli hadn't had the strength to heal.

"What happened?"

"Brother was... willing to join.... like I said..." Eli slurred. "Rock attack... Argus... must have been... hit the glyph...and... bang." Eli eyes flew open and he stifled a cry of pain as his arm was snapped back into the correct position. He held back the urge to vomit again, the taste in his mouth was evil enough.

"Perhaps you can send a message to him after we take Lorrel."

"Lorrel?" He managed, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. "We're going to take the Port?"

"I'll tell you the details later." Aleron replied, realigning the last broken rib with a dull popping noise and a wince from the younger man. The half-elf gingerly reached out and clasped his arm, an expression of sweet relief crossed his face as he felt tender muscles, but not pain.

"Sleep." His teacher told him.

"I will, thank you." Eli replied, pushing himself awkwardly out of his seat with a final question on his lips.

"Has there been any word from Gabriel yet?"

"I don't expect to hear from him until his task is completed."

"Everything's going swimmingly." The half-elf muttered.

[Jack Rothwell]

It was only a few hours from daybreak when the communication crystal around Aleron's neck began to glow. The old half-elf was alone in the central chamber, Eli had been crashed out in his room shortly after his arrival, sleeping off the sickness he'd picked up on the snowy slopes near Goriel.

'Aleron.'

'Gabriel!' The old man smiled. 'I trust you have good news for me?'

'I've got the item. I'm drawing the glyph now.'

'Excellent work Captain!' He pumped a fist in the air. 'Your actions will be well-rewarded.'

'I'll contact you again when I'm ready to travel.'

'I look forward to hearing from you.'

'I've also located a possible candidate for recruitment...'

'You can tell me all the details when you arrive.'

A new recruit? That raised some interesting possibilities. Gods knew that the Ralkin needed as many loyal members as they could find, however, whether or not the ex-Militia Captain had the capacity to tell a good recruit from a bad one was a matter to be decided.

And so, an hour later Aleron used the mirror to draw his employee through. The grim-faced human stepped through the smoke, grinning in his rags, and with the final piece of the artifact clutched in his hand. The mage fixed his attention on the thin blade, and spoke in a breathless whisper.

"You've outdone yourself Gabriel." He extended his hand and took the knife, holding it up to light in a similar manner to how the Captain had done it when he'd first gotten hold of the thing.

"Follow me." He said. "You're about to see something very special."

[Jack Rothwell]

Eli had managed to drag himself out of bed and join the pair in the side-chamber which contained the incomplete Ralkin artifact. He stood, swaying slightly, as Aleron approached the basin on the knot of stone roots that served as a plinth for the orb they'd retrieved. Gabriel stood nearby, watching impassively with his arms crossed. The half-elf noted the blood-stained rags the human was swarthed in.

"Rough night?"

"Got shot." Gabriel said, giving Eli his own assessing look. "You?"

"Buried in a landslide."

Gabriel nodded to himself as their leader redoubled his grip on the knife in his hand. "It didn't kill you."

"It did not."

Was there an inkling of respect forming there? Eli didn't think it was unwarranted. It didn't change the fact that Eli was a long way from trusting a man like Gabriel, but there was no denying the soldier knew how to get things done.

Further thought on the subject was cut off as Aleron turned and raised his hands high.

"Today is the first day in a new order. Be humbled to witness it." With no further dramatics to add, the Ralkin leader wheeled and plunged the tip of the blade into the empty socket of the 'iris' of the orb. The weapon slid down until it's entire length disappeared from view, the 'Ceremony Leader' ('...and this certainly feels like a ceremony' The half-elf thought) backed away from the orb as a red glow began to emanate from its centre. The pool of dark liquid the artifact rested in began to mist, rising to obscure the object from view as the energy gathered within. Eli gasped as his senses were bombarded.

"That's strong, that's really, really, strong."

A ripple of light snaked up the length of the plinth in a flash. Gabriel's arms uncrossed and he leaned forward despite himself.

"You recognize it?"

"Never seen anything like it before..." The half-elf's voice was a distant murmur.

With a final pulse the artifact ceased it's display, all that remained was a thin strip of light that glowed from within the orb, clearly outlining it's final component. As the Ralkin watched the line ascended from it's enclosure. The knife hung, suspended in the air, the runes on it's sides aglow with inner fire.

"It is done." Aleron's voice was as soft as Eli's, with a gentle gesture the old man reached forward and took the blade from the air. It was warm in his palm.

"With this." He said, looking at the younger half-elf with eyes that shone with triumph. "With this, we can finally have justice."

[Jack Rothwell]

"So what now?" Eli asked, once the three had returned to the main chamber and sat down around the long table. The half-elf could hardly take his eyes off the magically-charged weapon to ask the question. The runes seemed to leave red trails in the air as Aleron examined it, he hadn't put it down since he'd retrieved it from the altar.

"Now we make plans to move." The leader replied. "I need the pair of you to go and see Logan. Explain to him that we need a building in the Port. One of his old partners homes should suffice."

"Old partners?"

"Matthew Weatherby and Randal Devive." Gabriel supplied. "They ran LWD enterprises together. Lucas-Amadeus Logan was always the front-man of the three, and after he got his highway town up and doing business a few years back he refused to split the revenue with his partners. Both of them 'went on vacation' shortly afterwards and haven't been seen since."

"We're supposed to trust him?"

"I helped him get ahead of his competition on more than one occasion." Aleron said. "It'll be enough to get us a headquarters, and after that it'll be too late for him."

Eli smiled despite himself as he realized the implication of his employer's words.

"We're going to take over his company aren't we?"

"His resources will be invaluable, but first we need to get the artifact into the Port. The knife is useless without it."

"What about the militia?" Eli asked. "They'll be out looking for Gabriel in force by now."

"I can avoid them." The ex-Captain said dryly.

"You'll be pardoned shortly after your return." Aleron tapped the knife on the table meaningfully, then smiled. "Or, better yet, you could be reinstated, maybe given a promotion to commander."

Now it was Gabriel's turn to smile.

"Make your preparations men, you'll be leaving shortly."

"Just no landslides this time." The younger half-elf replied, coughing into his hand.