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westwhere2023-10-06 07:00 pm
groundrules) wrote in westwhere2023-10-06 07:00 pm
Entry tags:
- arcane: caitlyn,
- assassin's creed: jacob frye,
- assassin's creed: ratonhnhake:ton,
- doctor who: clara oswald,
- kingdom of the wicked: emilia,
- kingdom of the wicked: wrath,
- last case of benedict fox: benedict fox,
- mcu: america chavez,
- mcu: kamala khan,
- mcu: natasha romanova,
- one piece: luffy,
- one piece: zoro,
- original: red,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- umbrella academy: allison,
- umbrella academy: five,
- warcraft: wrathion
blood & sand
Hi folks! Welcome to Eastbound’s last test drive meme and the second event of the Ephes Arc, stretching until 25 October. Applications next open over 20-25 October, with invitations required for new players (but not returning ones). Individual cast and game caps are off.
Test driving characters can use this space for both network and log prompts, as well as play both the newcomer and shared prompts. Enjoy!
NEWCOMERS-ONLY PROMPTS
You wake to the creaky swaying of a large wooden cage, in the back of a cart. Balmy sun pinches your cracked, dried skin. Haziness and nausea assail you, your legs weak. Your supernatural powers are muted, due to recover within 48 hours. Several other carts trot by. You share your cage with a dozen others — largely farmers — and sacks of freshly harvested wheat, their bottoms stained dark.
The farmers point you towards a heap of rusted pendants that allow you to speak and glean local tongues, and access a network. They say you were recovered following an earthquake at a Hive — one of the agricultural clusters feeding the extravagant Senate-led city of Ephes. The Ephes army, the elite Hand, was patrolling nearby and is taking you to the citadel for healing.
- ■ Gather your bearings and distribute the scant water that Hand soldiers dole out — the earthquake, you hear, has dried the Hive wells.
■ You quickly learn why the Hand encaged all of you, as one of the Hive farmers starts to jerk, growl and shake, weeping black water as he strikes at anyone around him. Fend for yourself, before the Hand soldiers come to remove him!
You arrive at the main gate of Ephes, where crowds vie for passage. Your carts are inspected, and an irritable woman enters each cage, checking each passenger — before taking you and a handful of others for ‘further customs investigations.’
In the back of an alley, she introduces herself as the sorceress Karsa — and says you are otherworlders brought into the realm of Akhuras by undead lieges of the Brotherhood, who seek to weaponise you in their wars. Her patron, the Merchant, leads otherworlders to ancient transport beacons that can deliver you home.
One beacon sleeps in Ephes, where the rest of Karsa’s party is scattered. The citadel has mysteriously accrued an elite, nearly supernaturally strong army that the undead lady Messalina seeks to borrow from the Senate, in her quest to free her undead companions from the Brotherhood. The Senate is yet to vote on her request.
The black water that has touched you, Karsa says, has previously been found where the undead rally. For now, Karsa gives you a little coin, passport papers identifying you under various civilian roles (player’s choice, but keep it Ancient Rome-themed) and an iron pin of an eye with a sun for a pupil to identify other party members.
SHARED PROMPTS
Decadent Ephes is overrun by rumours, after several Senators who intended to support undead lady Messalina were mysteriously assassinated at the banquet of prominent Senator Maximus Faustus — who, Karsa informs, is one of Messalina’s shapeshifting creatures. Messalina offers her protegees demonic hound escorts.
Hand army recruits protect official buildings, while the rich hire gladiators to watch their homes. Both move freely.
The Senate fears further retaliation against those who champion the dead. Senate leader Caius Justus distantly mourns the Senatorial murders from seclusion at the temple of the Chained God.
Civilians face increased tensions and whispers of curfews in the market. Crowds frequently quarrel over undead allegiances
Following an exercise in divination, priests of the city’s patron, the Chained God, spread word that the deity holds strong despite his Chaining, and he still wishes to destroy and rebirth the world.
Karsa informs the existing party that more otherworlders joined Ephes and wear iron pins depicting an eye with a sun for a pupil. She gives the party similar pins for identification purposes. Newcomers and old timers can recognise each other by their pins or engage over the network!
THE PROSCRIPTIONS
OBJECTIVE: procure proscription lists.
You hear from the city crowds that partial target lists are circulating with the names of politicians targeted for bounties. Karsa tasks the team to recover the lists, which can be used as political currency. Find them by either:
- ■ Infiltrating a tavern run by the ruthless city gang of Livius Decimus and packed with unscrupulous bounty hunters, thugs and professional assassins.
A local ‘delicacy’ drink of wine and pickle juice is often inflicted on strangers. Brawls erupt randomly. Coax shady patrons to share target lists.
■ Visit the empty marketplaces just before dawns and raid the chained wooden submission boxes of news shouters, who receive anonymous tip-offs about fresh bounty lists. The boxes are pinned to the ground and tightly locked, but rusty from the cold seasons — allowing you to break them or pick their locks, while someone keeps watch. Tampering with a news shouter’s box is a jailable offence.
■ Turn in a finished thread to receive a clue!
AT SEA
OBJECTIVE: investigate abandoned ships and rescue sailors.
One early morning (OOCly: Oct. 13), as you entertain sailors for gossip on the docks or fish breakfast, you witness the port authorities screaming for help as several small merchant ships appear abandoned at nearby sea for reasons unknown.
Lookouts spot no activity on board, while sailors organise rescues.
- ■ Row a small boat some 15-20 minutes to one of the merchant vessels. All merchant ships have roughly three hours afloat, as they slowly sink from numerous small erosion holes in their sides.
■ You find no crew on deck, and doorways to the cabins below are locked from within. Below deck, you find numerous sacks of wheat from the Ephes agricultural clusters, the Hives. A black liquid, thick and tar-like, is seeping out of the sacks — corroding the ship’s wood and creating leaking holes.
■ You find a handful of dazed sailors who claim a dark, slithering creature knocked them out. They were selected by Narula, leader of the elite Ephes army of the Hand, to transfer grain onto the vessels of the ‘merchant’ Matthias, much farther at sea. If you mention Matthias to Karsa later, she reveals he is a man (?) who potentially created the undead Brotherhood.
■ Seven sailors who did not know each other were chosen to man the ship. Eight men are in the room, meaning one ‘man’ is the assailing creature. You must decide who to release upstairs for evacuation.
■ Tips: the creature, disguised as a human sailor, has no pain receptors and isn’t afraid of typical dangers (fire, drowning). It does not bleed if hurt. It sometimes forgets to blink and increasingly, unwillingly, slowly morphs its features into yours, the longer it speaks with you. Lastly, the creature has a tattoo on its forearm identifying it as a soldier of the Hand.
■ Once found, the creature turns violent, dissolving into wisps of shadow and materialising once more to strike from behind you. The shadow creature cannot be outright killed — but you can lock it inside the ship.
■ Leave by small boat before the vessel sinks & claim a question if you saved sailors. Merchant vessels can be patched up, if successfully returned to port.
THE RATTLING
OBJECTIVE: survive & explore the arena.
To stoke her popularity in Ephes, undead mistress Messalina organises a sumptuous gladiator game at the Colosseum (OOCly around Oct. 20), inviting plebes, patricians, politicians, soldiers — and you.
Gladiators may be hired (or coerced) to perform, while servants supply copious amounts of wines, oysters and honey pastries. A tiny mechanical golden mouse, passing by each seat, drops folded pieces of parchment with fortunes and riddles, ranging from teasing to morbid to philosophical or sweet. Pick up yours and make sense of it with your neighbour!
Politicians often interrupt the games to announce donations or make elaborate speeches. Toss peanuts to signal your discontent — or join in with your own speech.
- ■ The games start with matches between humans, but are building up to face-offs with reptilian demons, mounted rhinoceros and flying gargolyes whose voices thrall you frozen put.
■ During the games, you feel slight vibrations, and — if supernaturally sensitive — an undefined magical tension. By 15:00, this ramps up into earth tremors that worsen over 12 minutes — as columns and seats topple over, and the ground breaks in deep rifts, releasing black, chilled, tar-like water.
■ Crazed mobs rush for the exit, stampeding carelessly, while columns and decorations tumble down.
■ Dozens of the monsters brought to gladiate free themselves and hunt down spectators. Soldiers of the army of the Hand — disturbingly fast, strong and disciplined — intervene but it’s best you look after yourselves. Some spectators shout these Hand recruits practise some of the techniques performed by a recently missing gladiator — the Beast of Brenne.
■ Passing by the earthquake rifts, you see wisps of the tar-like liquid that gushes from them is gradually assuming the shadowy shape of humans. Stalking after you, they do not speak or bring you harm, but slowly steal your likeness and drain you of vigour and stamina. You get the sense that all they want is a shape. Encountering shadow creatures leaves you with a sense of bitter loneliness that only living company can soothe.
■ If you study the arena, you see the same black liquid is gathering around freshly downed corpses, slowly reanimating them. These newly-crafted undead struggle to walk and speak naturally and remember their lives, often unaware they died. Anguished, they beg help to escape, before inevitably succumbing to the instinct to harm you. Remind or convince them they are dead, and they withdraw.
■ The largest earthquake rift in the arena is overrun by the black liquid and by nearby undead. Within it, you notice a bloodless hand that seems to never sink — Enter a RNG draw to collect it and its clue.
■ As you gather your wits outside, you see followers of the Chained God rallying in the streets, comforting the traumatised crowd that all will be well now — for the Chained God’s destruction will be mercifully swift.
THE QUIET HOUSE
OBJECTIVE: Explore the abandoned gladiator barracks.
NOTE: a Halloween special, this area is entirely opt-in and features several frights. Mind the warnings!
As chaos consumes the Colosseum, you notice the earthquake has destroyed a previously locked arena gate, revealing a decayed tunnel. The corridor leads inside a closed-off barrack whose doors and windows have been barred from the outside with wood planks and chains. Touch these restraints, and your unhurt hand leaves behind a fading blood print.
The barracks building is withered and clearly abandoned, with scarce furniture and a few weapons in a training room.
Several discarded torches stay alight on wall fixtures. Pre-prepared braziers have been filled with spirit-fending incense of sandalwood and sage. Explore for clues.
- ■ THE HALLWAYS ( cw: guilt haunting ): corridors flow into each other, often leading back where you started. You run into shifting wall engravings, some listing the name and ranks of Hand soldiers, or precepts such as GODS OF THE ARENA and BECOME AS STRONG / AS FAST, AS NIMBLE / AS GLADIATORS. A large portrait of Hand leader Narula is increasingly more scratched, every time you encounter it, while the painted man looks healthier, younger and stronger. Inevitably, you hear heavy steps — a deep-shadowed spectre, the Drillmaster, who starts to stalk you with slow persistence. Visible to you and your companions, the Drillmaster fluctuates between assuming the appearance of Narula and the distorted, monstrous figure of someone from your past, who heavily criticised or intimidated you. The corridor lighting changes depending on your proximity to the Drillmaster: green for safe passage, white to tread lightly, red to stop. You can make the Drillmaster disappear out of your way by facing or acknowledging whatever weakness (true or self-perceived) you have that has caused extensive criticism or self-doubt.
■ THE BATHS ( cw: doppelgangers): a long marble hall featuring a large swimming pool, now drained and filled with mould and debris. Steam overwhelms the room, except for a wall-length black mirror at the end of the hall. The more you look into the mirror, the more the black substance that covers it slips down, flooding the floors and also dripping from walls and the ceiling. As the mirror clears, you see your black-eyed reflection that suddenly screams out verbal abuse or plunges at you. Once you subdue the doppelganger (claim a clue), it dissolves into more black water, while the mirror shows scratched inscriptions of A RIGHTEOUS HAND SHAPES EACH OF ITS FINGERS.
■ THE DORMITORIES ( cw: membranous cocoons): hollow, empty, quiet, the dormitories sport strange membranous cocoons in the walls, from which shadowy hands reach out. You hear young wo/men, whimpering and murmuring that they aren’t afraid and want to change to make Brother Narula proud, before erupting into screams or laughter. Break the cocoons without getting trapped into their webs — only to find nothing inside, except stone dog tags, engraved with the names of Hand soldiers. On the floor, you find primitive tattoo needles and ink.
Luck strikes at sunset, when a previously barred door opens to release you from the house — back into Ephes.
NOTES:
- ■ QUESTIONS
■ NPC inbox (for test drivers)
■ Event title shamelessly pilfered from a gory gladiator show!
no subject
...And the rhino out.
He has no time to really think about what that might be, not that Jacob does much thinking. All his movements are instinctive, his muscles prepared by over fifteen years of training and practise.
The other man speaks, and Jacob is moving. He has the spear in hand, but his target is no longer the rhino.
This close, he can see how thick the creature's skin is, almost like plate armour in its own right, and its eyes too small to land an easy blow. Even if he does, the beast is still bridled like a horse, and a man sits upon it, forcing it to trample.
And that's why Jacob uses the lowered head as a launching pad. He jumps, one foot landing on the creature's face, between lower and upper horn, a stepping stone to the flat of its skull, and then up onto its shoulders.
No one at home is rver going to believe this! he thinks, the adrenaline flooding his veins as the surprised rider yells out. He's clearly not expecting anyone to join him in the saddle, and he's certainly not expecting a spear to be impaled into his torso.
no subject
Better, as one rhino is summarily hijacked and its rightful rider keels over on pains of spear through lungs — to sink and fish blindly for more of the dirt, throwing it in a dark cloud towards the second rhino, imitating the man's attack of earlier.
...to a similar lack of success. The creature, more irritated than delayed, hastens onward, its great heft rippling through breaking ground, as Hector anticipates becoming the latest accessory of its sharpened horn — only for it to instead stab one of the fumbling, stumbling and quickly wilting reanimated dead corpses, who somehow tripped in the rhino's path. It's unexpected, squelching and shudder-worthy.
Hector won't question it. Instead, while his ally comes to terms with rhino handling, he shouts over his shoulder, "Mind sharing the view?"
You turn that rhino around and give him a free ride, sir.
no subject
He's had barely seconds to shove the dying man out of his place and occupy it himself, but having unseated equestrian riders before, this is... similar. As are the reins, once his hand is on them. Although the beast is slower to turn, he thinks he might get the hang of it.
Feet firmly planted in the stirrups, he leans down as far as he can to grab at the other man's wrist and haul him aboard as he passes. Now getting trampled is no longer a concern, they can breathe a little easier. Maybe they won't die today!
"Welcome to the Whitechapel Omnibus Company, sir. If you will take a seat, we'll soon recommence our usual route..."
He grins as he speaks, before becoming a little more serious.
"Jacob Frye. Thanks for the assitance."
no subject
"Hector," he offers by way of greeting. "You're —"
...welcome, until Hector's hands around Jacob's waist inevitably strike a puddle of the previous rider's spattered blood, and he lifts his palm up to gaze into a clear vision of red, tar and... unidentifiable gore.
"...disgusting." Thank you. Moving past that, "Can you ride this thing?"
Or is this a learning-on-the-job experience?
no subject
Honestly, some people could afford to be a little more grateful.
"My pleasure, Hector." He mutters. But more loudly, "Just like riding a horse. Easy."
And while it isn't, exactly, he doubts a rhino can rear and throw them off. Or turn its head to bite them. And the arms around him are warm and pretty strong, so maybe things aren't so bad at all.
"Fancy trying two for two?" He asks over his shoulder, grinning despite the sting of disgusting still fresh.
no subject
He's about to reiterate his thanks for getting them out of here faster, when the second rhino appears in the horizon, and for all Hector had hoped they'd be love at first squinted animal sight — it seems unconvinced to let them pass. Downing its head. Doing something that can pass for either an excessively formal feral salute, or rapid preparation to charge.
"You're sure it won't think we're." A beat. "Friends?"
...all rhinos are friends, honestly, Trevor. Can you be more out of touch?
no subject
Or trying to. A pull to the reins does change the path their animal moves, but not with the quick reactions of a horse. Shame.
"Friends?" He calls back, "Two great big males, in a small territory? Doubt it!" Yet Jacob says this so cheerfully, because while he sees the other animal bowing its head to charge, he wonders if he can steer theirs just to the side, so they pass like mounts in a jousting competition. He's always wanted to do something like that.
"In your world Hector, did they have something called tourneys?"
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A tourney. He remembers those particular peculiarities of Western courtship. Books are entirely romantic about the presentation of the ongoing attempts of two great big males in a small territory to summarily and repeatedly penetrate each other to their very depths. In a most holy and Christian-like manner.
The rhino in front of them seems a scholarly creature intent on faithful historical recreations, down to the artistic detail of Hector's intestines knotted in an elegant bow and curtaining the proceedings. He's gutted to think of it.
"Stop the rhinoceros." As one does. "I'm getting off." As one also does, only petrified, sickened, and with a deep appreciation that the real danger was the unhinged ally all along.
no subject
"I wish I could, but I don't think you'll be any safer on the ground." He is serious about that, because two giant animals charging at each other is no different from the situation they were in before. At least up here they're not getting trampled.
He doesn't intend to crash them together. There are plenty of columns and maybe using one of those to their advantage would be better than trying to spear the rhino or its master. But that might not be easy. Hells bells, none of this has been easy so far.
"Hold on!" He says, pulling sharply on the reins, directing the rhino around, away from its charging brother, missing it by a slim margin. "We're going to try to stay out of their way."
no subject
Inevitably, it doesn't come. We're going to stay out of their way. Either they're outrunning the second rhinoceros, or they're diving or steering at the last moment, and far from Hector to question the strategies of his betters, but an idea strikes with sudden, rare acuity.
"There. Charge there." He tries, to the best of ability, to wave his hand to Jacob's left without distracting him from controlling the reins or obstructing his vision. He points, haphazardly, towards a wooden balcony that was no doubt constructed to give noblemen a premium view of the proceedings — and that now wobbles on one shoddy, eroding wooden pillar. Beneath the balcony is the animal entrance of the arena. If they can get there...
"Take down the pillar. It'll bring the balcony on their heads, if they follow." Biding Hector and Jacob the time to dash inside and scatter, whether they do or don't.
no subject
It would come down so very easily. Would it kill a rhino? Probably not but that's not the aim. It woukd certainly stop the rider from chasing them any more.
And more importantly, they'd be safe inside the backstage area.
"Hector, you're a very smart man aren't you?" He replies, and starts to get their rhino moving in that direction. Not an easy feat, at the speed they're going, and the other rhino is right behind them. Which is where they need them to be, but it isn't fun.
Do horse commands work on rhinos? Jacob's pretty sure the answer is no, but in the heat of the moment he's trying anyway, doing all he can to move their mount in the right direction at speed, and then jeep in that trajectory.
"Watch yourself!" Is all he can shout as the beam supporting the balcony gets closer and closer, and suddenly they're crashing into it, and then through into the darkness beyond the animal gate.
no subject
Very smart. It's been some time since anyone's levied that particular accusation, and the onslaught of crashing into a pillar, full speed ahead, suddenly reminds him of the natural limitations of his intellect. He should have known, but remembers now, as debris slobbers and crackles over his head, for all he crosses his arms to protect his thick, stupid skull. Their mount, at least, seems utterly uninconvenienced, dashing through obstacles as if they were carved of butter.
If not for the immediate and ongoing threat to his fragile, flesh-cased person, Hector might be impressed. But then they're out of the thick of the guttering dust and wayward stone, and the worst of it's accrued, feverishly, toppled on their pursuers. He hears moans, hears hurt, hears... braying.
Sees the rubble, a mountain over the downed animal, who struggles to breathe his last. Prolonged, unnecessary agony.
"...stop the rhinoceros." A man of a single mind. But his voice is now limpid. "I need to put an end to that."
no subject
The other rider must have been killed pretty quickly if he didn't jump away. The other rhino had no such luck, its single-minded pursuit left it no chance. Jacob feels sorry for it, just like he does the horses that end up entangled in the wrecks of carriages, so when Hector, with that broken voice, says he will see to it, Jacob nods. He's got a blade, not a fighting one, but sharp, tucked into his belt, just like many Ephians do. He unclasps it, sheath and all, and holds it behind him. He doesn't know if Hector has a weapon, or there's any around here, but it feels like the least he should do.
Their own mount has slowed, recognising the place but also because it's no longer being urged to run, and its sides heave with deep, exhausted breaths. Clearly, running like that for such a long time is not what these creatures are meant to do.
But there are large cages in the cool darkness in here. Some are more like crates, some are stables with iron walls and doors set into the stone, strong enough to contain an angry lion and perhaps a rhino. He thinks here is the best, safest place to leave the creature, and let it recover.
Once in said stall, Jacob carefully gets down, slipping from the strange saddle as the rhino drinks deeply from a long trough, and makes his way out before the creature can charge him again- if it had the energy. Locking it in, he makes his way back towards Hector.
"Are you alright?" It seems the only thing to really ask, after the chaos of the last few minutes.
no subject
Later, he will sit and still and wonder when it was he learned what to do with it. How to cleave from himself weakness, and from others the parts required to build life anew. He nods his thanks and his fleeting farewells, taking the blade to see the bloody work through. A kindness, he tells the animal, eyes closing.
Then, it is done. Another lifetime prior, he might have considered his hammer, put to the use of revival. There's no point here, no stability in magical flows, no prime materials to start the appropriate rites.
It doesn't matter. Jacob and he have their work cut out, and escape seems a non-trivial, emergency priority. Is he all right? His hands, violently shaking.
He returns the knife. "For a value thereof." Which is to say, trauma is trivial. "We should make scarce."
no subject
"I'm sorry."
If it could have been him, he would have done it, and maybe he should have done it, when all is said and done. Unfortunately he can't change it now, all he can do is make sure this guy gets out of here.
"Come on. There's got to be a way out through these tunnels." After all, they have to get the animals in here, don't they? There's got to be a way that goes out to the streets of Ephes.
"We should be safe now. The performance is all for the Arena. Now we're just... gladiators done for the day."
It might not be much of a reassurance but that sort of thing has never really been his forte.
no subject
"Mostly I've run or sat very still."
But now they're moving, circulating fluidly through the corridors, as if they're veterans of the arena and not casual amateurs who've lucked into survival. He offers Jacob a light pat on his shoulder, congratulatory —
And cringes, when his palm comes away blood-stained again. Really. "You may wish to... shower."
no subject
"This place is dangerous. Not just Ephes, the whole world. You'll have to learn to fight here." He says, trying to sound as supportive as he can, trying to summon some of Evie's ability to put people at ease. He's not entirely sure he's picked the right words. "I know it's hard. But we're all in the same boat."
To Hector, it seems that Jacob is navigating the corridors and tunnels easily, but he's cheating, to some degree. He's no longer seeing the world in colour, but in various hues of black, grey and white, using his Eagle Vision to locate what must be the door to the streets, heavily reinforced.
"We'll get out first. Then I'll get a bath." Hopefully. "I'm used to it."
no subject
Please, mother of mercy, bathe. But at least Jacob is furthering their escape plan, and Hector's learned the art of efficiently, obediently navigating a clustered and claustrophobic space. What he needs to do now is to make as small and negligible of a nuisance of himself as possible. To understand that he might not be in the presence of his betters, but he's still the less acclimated element in this landscape.
He's got learning to do: fast and uneasy.
"When we get out —" When, not if. He has no patience for the kind of flagellating self-pity that brings about questions of mortality. "Show me where the bodies are."
There is hope for Hector still.
no subject
If the other man had said aloud anything more about showers, baths, washing or otherwise dealing with the fact he's covered in blood, Jacob might have smacked him. Thankfully, Hector has the good sense to keep mum about it. After all, they're trying to escape this place, not get ready to address parliament. Priorities, Hector.
"What bodies? The undead ones?" He asks, distracted for a moment by the strange question. But if, as Jacob expects, this is a brand new arrival, he might not know the lay of the land. "The bodies walking around and whatnot are camped outside the city. I'd stay away from them if I were you."
no subject
All the same, and he starts to wave Jacob along, as if it is Hector who knows their way into the mouth of the corridors, they have no options. Hector has no choice.
"I need corpses. The kind known to lie still." Less ambitious in their promenades and carnage-filled exercise routines. "And a forge."
no subject
He can't help but make a face at the request, he can't see why on earth Hector would need bodies. But curiosity makes him stop, putting his arm across the man's path to stop him. Barring him an escape down the tunnel.
"Why?"
no subject
They are prized weapons, instruments of war. Easy captives and castaways. No, a sweet rhino's ride doesn't earn that kind of trust so easily.
"Because they have an army," he offers his shoulder, and the tunnel captures his voice, returning it in crystalline echoes. "And we need one."
Hector needs to forge them one.
no subject
"They have an army. Of the undead. That's the problem."
He doesn't inderstand. Fighting the undead with more undead, surely its just adding to the problem? The living are already outnumbered, how can getting more bodies out of graves help?
"If you want to mess around with that stuff, you'll have to speak to someone else. I'll get you out of here, but I don't get... I don't get involved in that."
no subject
But it's heatless, arid. The sort of objection that speak of an academic interest in debate, sooner than genuine indignation. He speaks not of undead, but of same-souls forced back into bodies, under command. Of pure and pristine revival, not the artless and uncivilized recreations here exhibited.
Far from Hector to judge, but the look of disdain aimed tirelessly in every-each direction speaks a long, pained rhetoric of his declining faith in the skill and knowledge of the practitioners who woke these creatures.
The corridor is long, dusk-shrouded. Enticingly soothing. Calm. He walks, increasingly at ease.
"You just jousted on a rhinoceros. It can't be me you're afraid of."
no subject
Jacob knows it is hard- so bloody hard- to let go of what you did, and how important it might have been back home. Everyone he's met here has had some meaningful purpose in their existance, something they've been doing for so long that it's hard to see beyond it now they're somewhere else.
...himself included.
But that doesn't mean he's fine and dandy with bringing the dead back and letting them lurch around like they didn't already have their turn.
"I'm not afraid. I just don't want anything to do with them."
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