Recycable Character Components

[Thrydwulf]

Christopher strolled into the monitoring-room with unbridled enthusiasm; it wasn't like him to be so put-on about a subject as he was, but it also wasn't everyday that he was met with someone so promising. He had to admit that the manner in which he went about procuring her wasn't all that ideal, and personally, he would've opted for something less-intrusive, but having her so close to him, being able to analyze the fierceness in her expression as she inquired of her whereabouts, gave him the smallest degree of satisfaction. He watched intently from behind a one-sided mirror as she made a feeble attempt at liberating herself from the magnafield, thrusted herself forwards, only to be repelled backwards as the magnetic-energy reacted to the metal bracelets adjoined to the joints of each of her limbs, and landed deftly on her bed.

"She's been doing this for quite some time now," remarked Tony, the building's technician and personal overseer of the woman in the room.

"Has she harmed herself," Christopher replied with notable sincerity.

"Nah, I doubt it. The rig's set up so she can thrash around as much as she wants without causing herself any real injury. The field acts as an invisible barrier and so long as she's wearing those things," he said tapping on the screen, referring to the metal circlets, "she's about as immobile as possible without sacrificing comfort."

"Well that's good to hear." Christopher continued towards a monitor placed only several feet away from the door, and waved his hand in the air at it. A pixelated menu emerged out of thin air, radiating with a blue, sterile hue that illuminated the room intermittently. Interacting with the menu, Christopher conjured another pix-screen, though this one displayed the room and seemed to move around in accordance with the motions of his hands. He raised a hand in the air and swiped two of his fingers forwards, bringing the camera even closer to the woman's face and stopped; a look of admiration occupying his otherwise vacant face. "Beautiful, isn't she," he asked; though his distant expression suggested his inquiry was more of a rhetorical one.

“Will no one speak to me? Will no one give me a fucking answer as to what's going on? Here I am bound to this bed when I'm sure there is no where else I could go. I have to piss! I have to piss and I'm going to do it on these lovely, pristine, white sheets! Maybe I'll take a shit while I'm at it!”

[Thrydwulf]

Gaspard Noah Lemaître

Birth:

Born in Marseille, France in March of 1985.

Nationality:

French

Gender:

Male

Age:

Twenty-seven

Distinguishing Marks:

Nothing of note.

Predominant Feature:

Gaspard's most noticeable trait (noticeable in the sense that it's unusual not so much that it bespeaks of anything underlying or not) is a psychological kink in the use of his powers. Due to the peculiar nature in which he manipulates his ability, Gaspard is physically incapable of looking another person in their eyes. With force and some manner of fastening his head in once place, you might be able to catch his glance, but of his own accord he cannot, in fact, he'll take every measure short of blinding himself to ensure that he never looks someone in the eye. To his knowledge, it is not known why or how this oddity was born, but somehow in the employment of his powers he realized that certain psychological fail-safes were constructed by his psyche to ensure that he himself was never compromised by his own ability.

Despite what may be expected, it isn't all that difficult a thing to manage and mostly it goes unnoticed. A large majority of the time, Gaspard wears black-lens glasses to mask the fact that he must override a social courtesy to ensure his sanity, but if you can get over the fact of him wearing sunglasses in a dimly lit room, than open conversation is perfectly manageable.

Health:

Physically speaking, Gaspard is as fit as a fiddle. Other than the common cold or the flu should it catch him before he's time to vaccinate himself, Gaspard lives a life free of crippling afflictions. Mentally, however, a couple screws are unwound; and in some realms of his psyche completely missing. He wasn't always as perceptive of his abilities nor the consequences that accompany them; and in way of his psyche he's taken a couple blows because of it. Clinically speaking, one observer might write him down for slight schizotypal personality disorder, capitalizing on his odd way of viewing normal situations and rather eccentric disposition which he cognitively tries to bind.

Another oddity that has come to surface in his recent experiments with his abilities, is the birth of multiple personas. As of late, the onset of these personalities has been mild as has been his employment of his abilities, leading him to believe that the use of his powers is associated with the mental discomforts he experiences. He reasons that should he use his abilities prolifically, he'd no doubt slip into insanity without indication, or worse yet, lose the function of his mental faculties altogether. He himself does not act on these personalities, more like, his thinking is swayed by their existence. It should also be noted that the only personalities he experiences, are those already crafted in some of the fictional novels he reads...and it should also be noted that he has read a great many novels.

Ability:

To say that life dances to the beat of the same drum is not only poetically appealing, it's also incorrect. Some life dance with a little more fervor than others; some life believe their dance is a partiality of some supernature and not just a calisthenic approach to existing; and yet some life don't have the dance in them at all. It is far more accurate to think of life as a collection of light-bulbs; myriad in design and limitless in function, though all dependent on one source of energy: electricity. No longer are we playing with metaphors, we have entered life in its literal sense. All forms of life function in different capacities with the aide of electricity. Maybe not the kind that rips through a black sky, sending animals and children into terrible fits of uncontrollable fear; but just as beautiful and with a little more significance.

Bioelectricty prompts the onset of chemical reactions that course through our body like a network of messages, relaying information where it is needed to perform tasks that the brain has deemed necessary. It's the juice behind the execution of our muscular and skeletal system, a source of power to the wonder that is our cognitive beings. You feel it in your body, even from others went its exudes itself through the skin in the form of thermal energy; you see it all around you, or rather all is seen through it; you can hear it too, but not as the zzzzzzzz you might think of it as, but as the sound of birds chirping, babies crying, or the soft, delicate pleasure being whispered into your ears by a loved one. Unbelievable yes, but you know of its existence without even being conscious of it. But one man possesses a far more intimate understanding of this language, not only can he speak it fluently, but he knows it well enough to create the words on his own. This man is Gaspard Lemaitre.

Electrocommunication: The currents of electricity that course our body do not exist as the messages themselves, rather they are prompted by and prompt the chemical reactions that facilitate communication throughout our body. When a plate of food is set before you, your brain doesn't simply zap its commands into the respective muscles of your body to initiate a reaction; synapses in your brain fire off at unbelievable speeds, turning thoughts into electrical currents that interact with action potentials all throughout your body's cellular construct to prompt the body into acting based upon that thought. Gaspard has the ability to read these currents as if they were nothing more than letters in a very abstract language and perceive the message behind them, tracing the chemical patterns throughout your body to their origins in your brain. He can sense when the average person first recognized that the plate of food was before them, when exactly they felt prompted to eat it, how the plate of food was recorded by their own senses, how it tasted, and what effect it had on their body.

The manner in which synapses fire is universal true, but when they do and what prompts them to is never constant. Each individual has a unique bioelectrical current that courses their body, each uniquely resistant or pliant to the whims of his own electricity. The consequence of this as he has come to discover is that while he may be able to induce slight manipulations to the direction of the current, he cannot stop one entirely nor can he create one within another person as well. For instance, he couldn't prompt an individual to commit an action without themselves already providing the chemical components to do so, meaning if they didn't want to do something, he couldn't force them to. Alternatively, if that person were to, say, commit themselves to kicking a ball, Gaspard could manipulate the current prompting their body to do so resulting in them either kicking at the ball seconds before or after they were supposed to or swinging their foot degrees shy of the actual ball itself. The average person remains largely unaware of his influence on them, but should their own current prove strong enough, it is possible for an individual to feel a sense of discomfort or invasion from his antics.

The brain requires chemical resources to carry out its actions and if they are absent the reaction cannot be induced. If their exists the components and will for an individual to change their mood, Gaspard can facilitate the directional transition of electricity in their body to do so, but if someone were to have a medical condition that prohibited the production of say dopamine, he'd have nothing to prompt the person to feel the sensations of satisfaction. Another restriction that he has encountered is his inability to access the memories of other individuals; at one point in time he could, though after a schizophrenic episode that resulted in him confined in psychiatric care, he willingly constructed a psychological obstruction, impassable, to prevent that from ever occurring. That is also the cause of the birth of Argent, perhaps his most sadistic and antagonistic persona.

Cost:

Cognitively: Gaspard has yet to uncover the exact relationship between his powers and the degradation of his psyche, but he's sure that one exists. As a child he was mentally sound, with nothing so much as ADD plaguing him, it wasn't until his experiments that he became aware of the mental ramifications that existed behind him using his powers. It started with small, seemingly harmless changes, such as recurring dreams and nightmares or being particularly perceptive of others feelings and what he could do to affect them. These things manifested themselves into the precursors of mental disorders, delusions, and--after a particular frequent period of using his powers-- the inability to control the thoughts that his mind created or which ones he picked up from others. As time progresses and he restricts the use of his powers, the severity of these ailments seem to become progressively more slight, though still existent as ever.

Physically: At some point in the development of his powers, Gaspard discovered that his hands exuded slight, uncontrolled currents of electricity. Not powerful enough to say "zap" someone, or issue bolts of lightning from his appendages, but enough to prevent him from being able to use modern-day technology, be that cars, cellphones, computers, etc. He also discovered that the use of his own electrical current to tamper with others, results in physical ramifications that manifest themselves in the form of heart problems and some minor lags in motor function. As of late, they've been minor in nature, but the latest heart palpitation he experienced was severe enough to prevent him from using his abilities since.

Personality:

One finds it quite difficult to describe with any degree of accuracy or affirmation the nature of Gaspard Lemaitre, even those closest to him are at a loss of which verbiage best suits him; though if hard-pressed they'd most certainly find solace in describing him as either woefully capricious or miserably enigmatic. And yes, the adverbs are a necessity, because, you see, Gaspard does not function on the level of norm that you and I might expect of each other, or simply anyone who inhabits any station of society, but especially not from someone so well-connected as he is. His complexity lies not in the social persona(s) he's crafted throughout the years; no he's quite good at playing the role of suitor, or prospective businessman, or ambitious scholar, or refined gentleman, or the frequent bunburrist, and oddly enough arms dealer if you occupy the appropriate social strata. The enigma comes from the subtle, underlying and almost ineffable sensation he exudes, one whose impression suggests that you're never quite getting all that you want from him. Whether that be a result of an individual's insatiable desire to learn more of the admittedly intriguing Mr. Lemaitre, or the fact that everything he says comes across as wild and grandiose is hard to settle, but it remains, even after holding a conversation with the fellow, you're left with an unsatisfied pallet.

Even the cadence of his voice seems oddly accorded with his personality; it rises and falls in every manner of sincerity, making his swagger all the more charming, his lies all the more believable, and his truths all the more cunning. He's a businessman of course, a prospector some might call him, and the dealer of death if you'd lend Shakespeare a few strokes of patience. He's spent the majority of his life perfecting his family's craft; a craft of many crafts you could say, be that weapons to haberdasheries, anything that keeps currency circulating through the veins and arteries of the Lemaitre lineage. By consequence, he's picked up quite a few trades, more than even he has any business entertaining, but then again, how does a tycoon become such. It is rather unfortunate, however, that the field in which he so loudly and ceremoniously tramples about in, is riddled with all manner of individuals and seedy organizations with a rather insatiable desire to silence him and his antics.

Attitude:

• Greatest fear: His gradual, and self-thought inevitable approach to insanity.
• Wish: To ultimately rid himself of his "abilities".
• Biggest regret: Employing his abilities in the first place.
• Personal accomplishment: Taking his father's empire to new heights.

Traits:

• Optimist or pessimist?: Neither, he can hardly claim realist as it is. The degradation of his psyche doesn't provide him with a reliable norm upon which he can base a biased observation. He sees things as they come to him, not exactly as they are; and how they come to him differs upon whom exactly is presenting him with the knowledge to view a situation. Is he looking at the glass through the perspective of Huckleberry Finn or Nick Carraway. There's the question?
• Introvert or extrovert? By his very nature, introvert. By the instability of his mind and his affliction of slight paranoia, introvert. Though if he were to be overcome by the personality of say Algernon Moncrieff, he might be a little more open to dialogue.
• Daredevil or cautious? Depends.
• Confident or self-conscious? Depends.

Biography

The Lemaitre name is one that holds a substantial tonnage behind it, not only in France, but Europe as well. Gaspard's great-grandfather, Theodore, founded the company that would one day grow to be one of Europe's largest import-export companies. Both his grandfather and father spent the duration of their lives expanding their business as greatly as impossible finding firm niches many facets of society including arms-dealing, food and drug standards, as well as some fruitful pharmaceutical exploits. Needless to say, Gaspard was born into an economical and social strata of supreme affluence, being afforded nearly every one luxury he could possibly wrap his head around and prove worthy of. His parents themselves weren't products of the new-age money they had come to acquire and still fostered the "work-hard, earn much" mentality customary of those individuals occupying the generations before his time. In fact it had been this aspect of his father, along with him serving in War World II, that had helped in keeping Gaspard grounded to what actually was worth the value placed on it. Things such as charity, morality, patience and those other traits of human nature that existed bereft of a price-tag were not entirely lost on the boy and in this way he resembled his father as he grew up.

Gifted with a precocity for knowledge and the inheritance of his father's business acumen, Gaspard exceeded particularly well throughout his schooling, graduating much before his peers and being the youngest in his university classes by a good five years. He majored in business and psychology, oddly enough, and took up work for his uncle who had come to own the family business when his father passed away at the age of sixteen. Suspicions of foul play arose some time after his father's death, but the degraded relationship with his mother following a fallout he had with her and the fact that he was interning in California when it occurred prevented him from conducting his own investigation. Not only that, but it was during this time as well, that he exposed himself to the consequences' severity of his abilities, resulting in a brief detainment in a psychiatric ward in northern California. Of course, such a thing was paid to remain hush-hush, and other than the staff at the ward, no one else was privy to Gaspard's fragmented self. Upon his return from his studies abroad, he found that the dynamic of the family business had changed much to his own and what he could only imagine would be his father's disapproval. However much he might have disagreed would never be known to anyone, for he masked it quite expertly and conducted himself in the favor of his uncle, quickly earning a coveted position under his tutelage. It wasn't until some time after he had invested much of himself into company and in a rather fortuitous manner that he discovered the truth behind his father's death.

Upon conversing with his uncle of the logistics of exploring potentially profitable possibilities in their American sectors, it became strikingly, and suddenly (it should be noted) perspicuous that his uncle, had been responsible for his father's death. He wasn't quite sure how, nor to what extent, his uncle had gone to see his father be dead, but the motive behind it was as apparent as ever. The feeling was ineffable and seemed to arise every time he found himself before his uncle; it took a matter of months for Gaspard to finally come to terms with what his premonition was suggesting, but he did. Without the evidence to support such knowledge, he had no room to act on such a claim, nor could he afford for himself or his mother, to make such an unbased accusation. Disgusted nonetheless, Gaspard chose to conduct a little experiment of his own.

He didn't mean to kill his uncle. Despite what might seem just and appropriate, Gaspard wasn't the vengeful sort, or at least he didn't feel such. Sure, he wanted justice for his father's death as much as his mother did, but to extend himself as a murdered to see it was beyond his nature. It started out slight, he recalls speaking with his uncle just for the sake of conversation. Poking his brain, seeing if he could somehow worm his way into his subconsciousness, but after that little episode that saw him in the psychiatric ward, he found it particularly challenging just discovering what the man had to eat that morning for breakfast. He simply wasn't able to do it. But then he recalled something his uncle had mentioned previously, something about his wife contemplating separation and the notion that any divorce settlement would be substantial in the manner of alimony. It was a superficial and rather trivial thing to exploit, but Gaspard committed himself to it. He tinkered around with the thought inside his uncle's head, adding to it much more substantiality than was due, increasing his uncle's own anxiety of the matter. Slowly but surely he found his way beyond the initial electrical current that usually served to block him out, and beyond it was a trove of insecurities, ideas of inadequacies and feelings of incompetence caused by his wife who had apparently been cheating on him as well. Who would've thought?

All these things, by themselves, and even together, were fairly mild mental discomforts; things people could usually block out or remedy by committing themselves to other pursuits in life. Though with Gaspard's promptings, their magnitude grew exponentially, until one morning a couple months later, Gaspard was woken with news that his uncle and a certain amount of his brainmatter, were found in the bedroom of his estate. Apparently, the toll of all that was troubling him, and Gaspard acting not only as an augmentor, but a catalyst as well, would prove too much to bear for his uncle. As per his father's will, the next in line would be Gaspard to inherit the business; but for some rather odd reason Gaspard wasn't comfortable with this. Upon hearing the news of his uncle's sudden death the plague of nightmares and odd dreams returned to him, followed by Argent. He decided it was best to hand over his inheritances to his mother for the time being, and instead took a much more interesting route for his life...

[Thrydwulf]

She’d spent three days in soaked misery; perhaps not the worst of times, but certainly not the best. She was weather-beaten and entertaining a condition of exhaustion that was capable of bedding any poorly-travelled individual for the better part of a week. By the end of the third day, her horse was looking at her as if to say, “You daft bastard.” She was an exceptionally seasoned steed.

Despite its reputation as an asylum of the lands, Demaire didn’t provide much in the way of comfort; nor did it possess any feature that provoked thoughts of protection or a sanctuary. Its moniker must’ve been drawn from the fact that being so far from the influence of the capital, all manner of foul and unfair denizens occupied its seedy interior, free of the subjugations of any one government. Truly enough, the amount of characters with more than questionable intentions in the surrounding area became more evident as did the realization that bedding down in any one of the inns would be something unwarranted by the wise. If she’d had her druthers, she would have rather tented down in the muck and bore the weather, rather than sleep among peasants and miscreants who looked just as likely to plunge a knife in her back as to offer her anything remotely close to her intended service; they might not mean much in a standup fight, but only a fool slept among a hostile countryside. And if there was one thing that Abella was not, that was an oblivious fool.

A smart man got his arse in a castle or encamped only with alert guards; but a man she was not, and without company she was. So what did a woman do alone? Nothing conventional of course, a man by his lonesome would be hard-pressed to coax a villager into sharing his quarters, but a woman was afforded many more disadvantages. She was still sated in her desire for food and companionship from her last jaunt in the previous city; she’d drunk herself silly, screwed herself senseless, and enjoyed herself thoroughly; the allures of tavern patrons and soiled men with generous pockets was not yet all that alluring in light of how recent those experiences were. She touched her coin purse ineffectually, entertaining the fond memories of last night in which she single-handedly robbed a caravan; it was practically full to the brim.

She headed off from there, but certainly not toward anywhere in particular; she certainly wasn’t going to pay for a room to be murdered whilst she slept, alone, by orders of Tristan bloody Redwood. It made no sense to take a room alone, no comrades and surrounded by enemies. Instead she rode somewhat towards the outskirts of the town until she found what she was searching for; a farmhouse with chickens, dairy cows, and some garden vegetables. This is exactly what she needed.

The farmer was wary at the approach of a stranger, and Abella figured she had the right sort of place; the price of a stay at the inn was what he offered in return for bedding for the night...in the barn, with the animals. More was offered for provisioning in the morning; meat and bread, ale and the like. Provisions to take a man through the march. She was well set up, because she made sure to load her packhorse with enough arrows and the other equipment, but that didn't mean that she wouldn't take the Captain's advice.

"Alright," the farmer, grizzled, aged before his time from the hard work, told him with his sons in formation, practically, behind him, menacing enough with wood-cutters axes and shovels, looking unpleasant and standoffish. The man took the coins and bit 'em, "Ye bed in the stables then, and mind ye yer eyes an' yer hands round me belongings, unnerstand me then?"

"Aye, bargained and done then," a spit on the hands and a handshake and it was done; the sons helped her get her animal into the barn, along with many other a beast; clucking chickens, mooing cows, a couple plow mules. But there was room.

"So, why a barn? Fer that price, ye could 'uf had a room at an inn." the eldest son seemed a squinty sort, and was half in the bag for the evening, being that farmers found solace in their drink, but he wasn't a fool. He looked wearily at the strange woman seeking lodging in his barn, not exactly an act appreciated by royalty, but the air of regality had been lost on her, ensconced by years of bruises and wounds, dirt and the determination to hide such a mask; she was as much an occupant of a lowly station as these farmhands, and it didn’t bother her one bit.

"A man can get killed at an inn, traveling alone, you know." she told the farmer, who accompanied Abella with a dog at the leash; slighter than some of the shepherd dog's she'd seen, but with a pointed nose and a black muzzle, and gold fur otherwise; long jaws and a bushy tail. “And as you can tell I’m not exactly in the way of protecting myself.” The son looked questioningly at the various weapons protruding from her saddle, though dismissed his suspicions no doubt begrudged by his consumption of ale. The dog sniffed at her curiously, and licked the hand; she didn't stick it out under the dog's snout, because that was an invitation to be bitten; instead, she'd let the dog come to her.

The farmer grunted, "Hungh. This one don't usually like folk much. But he's yer companion fer the night, we leave him out in the barn."

"Perfect," Abella told him, and meant it; a dog was the best security available. She personally liked animals, as a rule, they weren't duplicitous beings like humans were. A good animal was faithful to the feeder, their most intricate scheme being feed and care. A human...well, he could figure out the need for long term care, independence and other troublesome notions. You couldn't keep a person like an animal, the person knew better.

She tossed a piece of jerky from her rations to the animal, who snatched it out of the air and gobbled it. Good intentions established.

Inns had men in and out all the time, strangers passing through, folk used to it. And drunkards, all of whom could see the comings and goings of a stranger. A farm, ah, by contrast, was a lovely place to stay if one needed to stay hidden. Farmers tended to mind their business at the farm and it was lethal to approach one by night; the guard was up, because farms had one thing that bandits and other fellows wanted; food and drink.

She was, at a ripe old age of twenty something, a hardened campaigner, straw and a roof was good enough for her, she could make the warmth in some clean hay in a horse stall, and if the smell of the road apples in other stalls was a mite offensive, well, it was only to those that hadn't smelled worse.

She'd been a bandit, she knew that if the locals were going to look for mercenaries, they'd be searching the inns, not a farmer's barn. The farmer, by contrast, had his own animals to worry about, and that meant that the farm wasn't about to go unwatched either -- farmers were used to having people try and steal their things. A farm had dogs, birds, animals that made noise when things tried to sneak through like a predator. Farmers tended to be light sleepers, always worrying that others would steal the fruits of their labor; he wouldn't be surprised if one of those sons were awake at any given hour, making sure foxes stayed out of the henhouse, that wolves didn't come for the milk cows or the sheep. There would be shepherding dogs out and about; much like the one she was going to wind up sharing the barn with.

"We catch ya near the house, lookin' to rob us, we'll string ye up."

Abella took that as encouraging news, because it meant they were watching, even as she nodded somberly and the farmer left, feeling that the threat was sufficient.

Once left to herself, she started to bed down her animals; she started by checking hooves, currying coats and checking feed and water to make sure that they weren't tainted; but it was a healthy looking farm, and the animals were well kept. These fellows, they hadn't even given their names, seemed like they were an honest crew; Abella had nothing against honest men, and didn't take the suspicion as terribly amiss. Farmers made bad targets anyway, unless you were foraging for food, and then you wanted to have some mates alongside to intimidate them; you certainly didn't bother trying to sneak onto the farm unless you were desperate. The feed and water was of a good quality, she found -- trust but verify was a good way to go through life.

With livestock matters settled, she took out a shovel off the packsaddle and started digging a bit; the dog looked at her as if she were daft, but she just explained it to the dog, as if explaining it to an equal -- talking to animals was considered daft, but daft was not a bad defense in these parts; anything to keep a torch-wielding mob at a respectful distance.

"A fire, la,'" she told the shepherding dog, "Covered, to keep folk from thinking some fool is bedding down in the barn. You never known when trouble's caught your spoor, and it's always good to think like it has, eh? Keeps a dagger out yer ribs."

Or so she hoped, as she built a hidden fire, sheltered so that the glow would not light up the barn in the night like a beacon. She used charcoal, which would stay warm, burn a while and not put off too much light, or even much smoke.

The dog sneezed at her in response and turned to find more interesting amusement.

With the sounds of the various animals around her, she found herself dozing off with the warm of the coals and the embers of her little fire in its little pit; rather than leave it burning, she snuffed it by putting her buckler atop it, strangling it for air, and then fell a mercifully dry, fairly warm and content sleep.

***

Abella Guallier had been a caravan guard once upon a time, as well as a bandit preying on caravan guards, eluding those sent to bring her ilk in for justice. Both professions made for light sleepers, and crafted a particularly keen set of ears for the various activities that seemed to transpire only in the wee hours of the night. Namely the soft, hardly audible sound of approaching footfalls, and based upon the fervor heard in their steps, she could only assume that it was someone a little more curious then they had any right to be.

Whoever the intruders were, they didn't realize that Abella was awake pretty much from the first bark emitted by her new nocturnal companion; what she didn't do, in the darkness, was light a torch or something that would give herself away. Instead, she concentrated on slowly and very carefully shedding her blanket, even as she bundled things beneath it to make it look as if there were still a man-shaped form beneath it; then, with her short sword in hand, she made for what she felt was the best spot from which not to be spotted if one were paying attention to the form with the blanket.

If the fellows didn't know about animals as alarms, she figured what she had on her hands were a bunch of city boys; that was conjecture though, and she treated the enemy with respect; she didn't bank on further mistakes, though she certainly hoped for something that she could exploit.

Abella was an archer; she knew how to regulate her breathing, to focus in, and she’d been in fear before, she understood how to control it, how to will herself into stillness. This was a hunt, after all, with bait, and she was a hunter. All she needed to do was think through the habits of the prey and use that to her advantage. She took the terrain into account, the animals, disturbed by the barking of the dog, were making their noises as well.

The conversation at the door piqued her attention even as she cursed the bad sense of the White Woods to split up; these fellows seemed mighty pleased with themselves and didn't seem to have much of a concept that a man might sleep in the barn, or that the animals would give them away in the field; they apparently killed the dogs only because the dogs, being sheepherding animals, attacked them, rather than because such animals would alert those within to the attackers.

There was much to interest her in the conversation; sound did carry an awfully long way in the night, which was why she didn't even dare to breathe loudly, and hated the sound of her heartbeat in her ears. These fellows, by contrast, seemed somewhat unfamiliar of the concept, even as they seemed to underestimate her; 'archer' they said, with contempt in their voices. Clearly, they were used to peasant conscript crossbowmen or fellows shooting the tiny bows they used around here, hardly an archer at all.

All the same, there were more questions than time, and more immediate concerns than the ones brought to light by the snippets she could hear; all of that was secondary to her preparation to do the act of murder; it wouldn't be the first time, though usually, she’d done it from a distance, by the bow. She’d only gotten up close and personal once, and that was with Alfred Miller; it was a long time ago, a lifetime really, and it'd happened in hot blood, hatred and vengeance, as much as out of surprise and the immediate need of it -- too fast to think about it, she’d gutted Miller from the front, the bastard, and deserted the King's Fucking Badly Provisioned Arrow Fodder while the going was good.

She’d never actually looked back, but it was the day she got made an outlaw, in her mind, because it was doubtful anyone back home actually cared nearly a decade later.

This time was different, there was the tension of waiting in ambush and coming at the man from the darkness with a knife; there was no room or time for the bow, and the sensation of murdering a man coldbloodedly and up close was a new one to her.

She watched her quarry, the same way any hunter watched her prey, and she learned some things even though she could not get a good look at the man she was going to kill; with her knife held behind her back, a heavy bladed sort of weapon good for skinning or getting meat off the bone, to keep it from glinting and giving her away, she held her breath, mostly, and got a feel for the movement; she knew the human body, but she wanted a sense of this human.

And she got it; this was a normal fellow, which was to say not some sort of knight that trained from the cradle to wear armor and bear arms, someone whose physical fitness regimen began in childhood and continued throughout a life; she appreciated a knight's ability to be dangerous up close, though the longbowman, raised from birth to kill from a distance, to pull back on the mighty yew stave that gave it such resistance and therefore power, was at the advantage from a distance.

This fellow didn't give off the grace of a knight out of armor, the lithe movement of someone bearing a burden several stones lighter; not all had that, but this fellow had a short sword, a peasant's sort of weapon. Abella had one herself, but she had the idea that she knew the use better than this fellow did. That didn't necessarily give her the greatest degree of confidence; she figured it would be a matter of touch and go; she had killed, even in melee, but it wasn't the most comfortable thing.

That didn't mean she was complacent; she was scared out of her wits that she’d botch the murder, raise the alarm and have all these fellows upon her; she couldn't take so many at once, not without some distance between them and a little mobility; if she’d been able to shoot and move, run while killing, she might have a chance in hell, but it was nightfall and not a full moon; the light would be scanty.

She wasn't about to stand and fight even if she did break loose; but all other plans hinged on the murder.

When the shrouded figure came forward to check what was her blanket, she lunged for the bastard; Abella had at least one advantage; the upper body strength of an archer. With the adrenaline surging, she grabbed the man hard enough to yank him off his feet as she dragged him toward the knife and pushed the knife in. She knew where the heart was, but in her haste, she seemed to miss; the heavy, wide blade sunk in and found some hard resistance. That resistance gave way with a splinter that was felt up her arm as the blade was driven hard into flesh and sheared through the muscle of the heart; there was a liquid gurgle that emitted from the throat of the stricken man and a wet warmth that washed over her hand. When she released, the man slipped to the floor with the sickening sound of meat slapping something hard, laying there limply with the limbs tangled and at strange angles while they twitched the last dregs of life away meaninglessly.

Abella had already forgotten the murder, even as she brushed her hand off on the bastard's pants. In the mental clarity that came of necessity, knowing that time was precious, she quickly ripped off the cloak; in the darkness, it wasn't apparent there was a hole or that the hole was sodden with blood. The very smell of it made the animals all the more restive, as there was a strong primal association with that smell and the need to flee from predators in their midst; that, of course, led to the next idea, her salvation.

The cloaked men were jolted out of their surprise, waiting for the last of their number, the lone man sent into the barn, to actually come out; they saw a flicker of a torch and started to head that way. Even as they did, there was the sound of hooves and charging, bellowing beasts and the flare of torches; it was hard to tell, in that cacophony of beasts charging, hooves and horns, bellows and whinnies, horse and horned cow, not to mention many different torches, which could mean riders, what was going on, but it was enough to take the men aback, thinking, perhaps, that they'd been ambushed.

There was a hue and a cry, and that gave Abella, mounted on her own horse, with the packhorse in tow, time to slip off into the night; she felt only a little guilty for what happened to the poor family in the farmhouse; she glanced back to see the barn burning brightly, which was the point -- after tying the torches to the horns of the cows, she set the barn afire and loosed the milk cows, the mules and the rest of the animals on the robed men, a diversion that allowed her to get free.

There was little enough pride there for what she’d done, because it was all done to survive, but she dismounted her beast once she’d gotten clear and watched for any nearby pursuit, her strung bow in hand. What shocked her out of her skin and nearly caused her to scream out in terror and surprise, however, was the whimper of one of the wounded dogs from the farm nearby.

She prowled closer, carefully, knowing that a wounded animal was likely angry; "Easy now, 'la..." she told the animal as she inched forward and dug a bit of dried meat from her pocket and threw it to the dog, "Let's see what the wound is, aye?"

Abella Gaulier, murderer, a woman all too willing to shrug off the death of an entire family because she happened to take refuge in their barn, just couldn't leave a wounded animal to die like that.

Dogs, after all, were not duplicitous in nature. It was entirely possible the farmers sold her out, but the dog, well, was a good dog, faithful to the last owners.

The dog had a little blood matting the fur, but it looked more like a glancing hit than an actual deadly wound; with a little cloth wrapped around the fur of the neck, she managed to stanch the bleeding and get the dog on the back of her horse, though she gave a startled whicker at the smell of the beast and the blood.

She led the animals into the stream with the fire of the barn burning behind her; the neighbors were starting to head in that direction, no doubt to see what was going on and she had no idea where the enemy was, but she knew she had surpassed the moment fit to retire from Demaire.

The brooding over what she’d heard and seen carried her through until she found herself at the White Tankard; trying to figure out how she’d throw it in Redwood's face occupied her time. She knew more was going on than she were told, because this was the sort of scrape one got into when someone was holding back and things were more complicated than they looked. Abella didn't like the idea of watching her ass around her own associates, but now she had the idea in her mind that not everything was as it seemed.

There was a throng of patrons leaving the tavern, she simply waited them out with a glare and a hand on her short sword, ready to draw on any of them; she waited until they'd thinned out, biding her time and making sure her horses were tied down in the stable.

When she pushed through into the tavern, it was apparent she’d seen a bit of a shindy; she was covered in blood, canine and human; she had that dog in her arms as she announced, "I bedded down in a barn for the night and a bunch of men came looking for me. Seemed they knew you," she thrust her jaw at Tristan, "by bloody name. They also apparently killed our blacksmith and knew our identities. They also left a bunch of bodies behind. It looks like we'll have plenty to talk about," she said, whilst she laid the dog gently on the nearest table, with a whimper from the animal by way of response, though she wasn't trying to get away, "while we flee for our lives with a mob of bloody peasants chasing us and trying to shove a pitchfork tine up our arseholes."

Tristan looked at her mildly perplexed, bemused by the bloody mess decorating her person, “Oh, you mean to tell me you bedded down in the barn to the north; I told them it was the one in the south. I suppose you had quite the trouble on your hands,” his eyes nodded to the dog lying on the table.

Abella’s eyes brimmed with fury at the realization that she had been set up. It wasn’t entirely without Tristan’s character to do something of this nature, his need to constantly test Abella’s capabilities was a reliable, and certainly most vexing source of frustration for her. His effect on her didn't go unnoticed; he smiled contently as he reached for his coat, withdrawing from one of its pockets a sealed envelope, titled with her name on the front with a penmanship remarkably similar to the Baron’s, head of the White Woods of Damascus. “It would seem, your time has come my dear Miss Gaulier,” he remarked tossing the note into her grip; she held the letter gingerly, her eyes examining the delicate arches of her name, her hands running over the surprisingly rich texture of the note. Without a doubt it was from him, such a material wasn’t employed by lowly people; only those with the mind and coin to do so, would use it.

Tristan watched intently as she read over the note; eyeing her with the utmost conviction, keying in on the subtle changes of her expression as she took in the context of the letter. Tristan was more than aware of what was being requested from her, partly because he was the individual requesting it on the Baron’s behalf, and also because he had been Abella’s guardian ever since the White Woods took her in. He felt it only right and necessary to ensure she was just as capable as any other man under his command; his methods of doing such were a mite controversial, but she was alive after all, this surely must have counted for something.

“Tis sad what befell Edes, but I hardly see why I must intervene. We’re not soldiers Tristan, we’re hardly even mercenaries, this isn’t exactly what we do is it?” She folded the note and slipped it into a pocket on her person.

“Well excuse me, but I hardly see where you should be concerned with such a thing. If the Baron has requested this much of you, I don’t think you’re in the position to question it,” he stood up sharply and threw his coat around his shoulders. “But if you must know, the Baron has reason to believe that a certain item of worth has been stolen from his treasury by the same antagonists who’ve sacked that village. It is to my knowledge, that you are to retrieve it.”

“And if it is not in their possession? What am I t—“

“Like I said, the Baron has reason to believe. Just get it back to us. You understand?”

“Aye.”

***

She'd been in death's company only too often, but the smell that permeated the town was atrocious, it did vile things to the senses and made one's gut churn in a manner most unnatural. A physical discomfort she felt, as she stood on the outskirts of the aggregation, trying her damnest to suppress the desire to relinquish the foulness she felt dwelling in her gut. With a tentative gaze, she eyed the despair around her; she just rode in this morning though everyone was far too occupied with the misery that had just recently befell them to notice another battered and dirtied individual. She walked around, looking for an individual who looked in the right mindset to answer her questions, though everyone appeared despondent, fixed on things and people they'd no longer see. She hadn't the heart to disturb anyone considering, so he sauntered towards her steed and waited for something, anything to stir the dismal silence.

[Thrydwulf]

Name:

Dr. Johann W. Taylor

Gender:

Male

Age:

Thirty-four

Personality:

Johann's mode of combat isn't antagonistic in nature, years in the service have taught him to take the preventative measures required to keep his own from being dealt lethal blows. This sort of mentality has segued over into his mercenary work, and serves even as a personal philosophy of his. He's developed a rather keen sense of awareness and usually abides by the internal promptings that may suggest danger is just around the corner. Of course this sometimes borderlines slight-paranoia, but then again in his line of work, you can really never be too careful. Plus, he's alive, which should account for something. He tends to stray away from politics just as much as he finds himself doing the bidding of politicians, though personally he doesn't concern himself with their motives, simply following the scent of credits wherever it presents itself most pungently.

Appearance:

Though Dr. Taylor's stature puts him at an odd end in any medical seminar he attends, his dimensions of 6'0" and one-hundred and eighty-four pounds makes him just another average identity contracted to the military. His eyes are that peculiar shade of hazel that earns the immediate interest of most women who look into them, and while usually soft and philosophical at times, the introduction of adrenaline induces an indomitability that has garnered him somewhat of a reputation among the teams he used to direct. His facial hair is fairly grown, though always somewhat neatly shaven to keep with appearances of a man of his station. Routine PT has kept his muscles lean and his body firm, and though he can be seen in the weight-room from time-to-time, one would more than likely spot the doctor throwing his weight around in the local Krav Maga dojo. In this regard, Johann is more adept at utilizing his body's fluidity than power alone.

Clothing/Gear:

Biometricy

Primary Weapon:

GSG-5 SD

• Retractable Stock
• Railed Handguard
• Red-dot Mount
• Semi-automatic
• Blowback Action (giggity)
• (3) 22-round drum configuration

Johann purchased the weapon from a friend in Arkansas who is an avid gun enthusiast. A little over-the-top so. As a pararescue in the Airforce, Dr. Taylor was taught how to adequately wield an assault rifle, though admittedly, he's always been more inclined to utilize his sidearm out of an unknockable knack of looking for victims first before engaging the enemy, in which a pistol always seemed the more expedient choice. A more-or-less inefficient take on triage, it has always served him best and he's yet to experience a consequence from such battlefield manner. His peers have chirstened him "Johann the Red" as a sarcastic variant of the merciless warrior of Persian history.

Secondary Weapon:

SIG Sauer P226

• Semi-automatic
• (3) 16 round box magazine
• Customized ironsight

Johann is, admittedly, more proficient with his pistol than the GSG he uses. He's had this specific gun since he was a lad, an inheritance of sorts given to him by his father shortly after him retiring. It's kept in a holster on his right hip and is usually fastened by a clip.

Cybernetics:

- Cybernetic Vision implants; low-light, flare-compensation and ultra-sound vision. It also includes a HUD that interacts with other systems. He generally keeps these covered with special lenses that resemble sunglasses. They require special eyedrops and lubrication from time to time.
- Smart-link targeting system -- the last of these involves a biometric palm-mounted induction pad that interacts with smart-linked weaponry. It allows the firing of weaponry without using a trigger, though people tend to find that disconcerting. They are hard to detect unless someone is shaking hands.
- Sub-dermal ballistic weave, torso and thighs - bullet-resistant. Ironically, this is one of the less noticeable implants, given that the standard is to insert a flexible layer underneath the skin and grow it out organically.
- Balance augmentation and implanted communications rig; basically a tactical, multifrequency radio with encryption capability, as well as compensation for balance -- combined with the flare compensator, this helps resist one of the HRT's occupational hazards -- flashbangs.
- Reflex booster - the wiring of the reflexes has the added advantage of making the recipient faster on the response, but has the downside of making the recipient prone to reacting too quickly, almost out of control in situations. This has given rise to the stereotype of wire jobs being dangerous and unpredictable, when the reality is that the reflexes have a tendency to move faster than the brain in non-tactical situations where such a reaction is not warranted. D'Angelo's are fitted with a kill switch that allows him to disengage during routine activities, which studies showed had a psychological benefit for the recipients. Older systems do not have this failsafe, and their recipients suffer accordingly.
- EMP hardening of essential systems -- EMP still works, but it takes a stronger signal and backup power-systems put his prosthetics online after reboot that much faster.
- Bone-weave; strengthens bone structure, improves survivability and makes it harder to break a bone. As a result, he is heavier than his size would imply. Also vital for;
- Muscle enhancement; his are top-flight, as befits the sort of funding the FBI's HRT has -- they are not obvious unless he is in motion, but his movements are smoother and more even and level. Motor function is emphasized over strength, as is dexterity. The muscles look slightly different from human standard where replaced.
- Emergency Air Supply - improved lung function, protection against gas weapons and other environmental threats. Filtration system in the membranes of the nose and throat prevent absorption of toxins and other airborne agents.

Tactical Ability:

For all intents and purposes, Johann isn't the military combatant he should be. He's a doctor first, a pararescuer second, and a soldier last. A sort of misguided philosophy for an Airforce militant, though be takes his Hippocratic oath seriously. Given the experience he does have in both the Isralian martial art of Krav Maga and his affinity for pistols, Johann would rather a fight occur right before him as opposed to hiding behind obstructions and playing the mental game of chess most well-off snipers practice. He's somewhat of a surefire with a pistol though extremely accurate with a knife and his hands. The strength of a combatant with the tactical precision of a battlefield surgeon make for an extremely keen knife-hand. He's somewhat comfortable throwing his fists around though would rather take a blow to the face in an advance to squeeze the life out of you with a barenaked choke.

Also, as is custom with largely any disciple of true combat triage, Johann is a highly trained tactician. He's adept at analyzing a wide variety off austere scenarios and choosing the best course of action to keep himself alive. Unfortunately for him, he lacks the commandeering tone that it would allow such a trait to be fully utilized.

Combat Weakness:

Johann has very little to offer in the way of honest combat experience. As a parajumper he's usually a man of the background, coming in after, though sometimes during, the actual heat of combat picks up. He's far from battle-tested, and has very infrequently fired his weapon against an assailant. All of what he knows has been garnered from practice scenarios, teaching medical training courses, and various seminars relevant to his career as a surgeon.

His command with long-range weaponry is less than inspiring, and keeps him shy from rifles in general.

History:

September 1961:
Johann was born to Wynona and James Clark Taylor in Oxfordshire, UK on the Croughton Royal Airforce Base. His father was a Jetplane technician, his mother a librarian.

1966-1974:
Johann attended St. Joan's private school receiving exceptional marks on his report cards. He showed particular interest in fields of sciences and math. Teachers and some of his fellow peers would describe him as introverted and shy, the kind of wallflower most people were reluctant to associate themselves with, though his parents would offer that he was extremely dedicated to his studies. He played several club sports such as football(European), rugby, and tennis.

1975-1979:
His father began picking up on privately contracted employment, resulting in a reassignment to the Nellis Airforce base in Las Vegas, NV. During these years, Johann picked up on his father's military career, he enrolled into a local ROTC class and even found employment on the base as an assistant to a woman who ran a medical training program for nurses and field doctors.

1980-1984:
Johann was accepted to Westpoint on the basis of his own efforts, though admittedly, also due in some part to his father's insistence. His time spent on the base dealing so heavily with the anatomy of the human body and volunteer work for many of the local hospitals fixed the idea of practicing medicine into his very young and very impressionable mind. Near the end of his senior year at Westpoint, Johann, then twenty-three, met with an Airforce recruiter and finalized a contract with the Airforce for a term of eight years.

1985-1992:
Johann graduated from Westpoint as a Doctor of Medicine. With already eight years of training as a pararescue, Johann was capable of practicing medicine in comfortable surgery rooms, with optimal conditions, a variety of expensive, state-of-the-art tools, and bereft of the need to carry a weapon while treating patients. He tried for a year in Santa Barbara as an emergency room surgeon, though missed the thrill of launching out of helicopters and applying true triage under extremely austere environments.

[Thrydwulf]

Abel Narcisso

Gender:

Male

Age:

Twenty-seven

Personality:

The Abel before Confinement and the man after it are not the same person, not even remotely close. Life as a photographer had afforded him with a generally free and fluid lifestyle; freelancing from country to country picking up on the customs of the world's people. Though he was born into affluence, the pettiness of politics and the pretentious disposition of his family and their acquaintances was lost on him shortly after dropping out of law school to backpack around the greater continent of Europe. After the events that had him confined to the city of Meur, the four-year manhunt for the "Black-Skinned" demon in Thailand, and the harsh treatment he was subjected to at the hands of the Republic Marshalls, he has grown more callous and calculative. The philosophical softness behind his countenance has been beaten, bloodied, and forcibly removed; in its place is a hardened demeanor, something stone-like and unwavering.

Biography:

Biography

Power:

Power

[Thrydwulf]

The sound of his footsteps atop the shambled concrete flooring punctuated the absolute silence of the apartment complex. Resonating throughout the building with unnerving clarity and volume. Unnerving, not exactly because the concept of sound in these parts of the city was such a foreign concept, more because that the gentlemen he was due to meet would be granted more of an advantage than he, and already he had found himself in an unfavorable position. The beauty of being a self-employed trader was also it's most dire drawback; sure profit was always pleasant when it came his way, but the measures he took to securing it, always seemed a tad more demanding than any monetary award to compensate it. For instance, he was instructed to meet his mark at this apartment building, nearly ten kilometers from the boarders of the quarantine zone, in the heart of a city whose denizens wouldn't hesitate at the first instance of discovery to tear his flesh from their emplacement on his bones and commit frightful acts of disembowelment on the intestines therein. Beyond that he was asked to come with no protection, weapons or personnel either. To any reasonable mind, this was a mission of utter self-disregard; though as a merchant, he couldn't quite ignore the possibility of profit however improbable his mind might have warned him to be.

Of course, he wasn't completely mentally impaired, and as such had taken to not only calling on a favor from a pal of his, but stashing a revolver down at the reception area, should anything untoward presented itself. And from the funny little intuition nesting itself right in the middle of his fucking cerebral, he was due some kind of pat-on-the-back after the dust cleared on this little operation. He ascended the stairs, ignoring the feeling that at any moment they were due to fallout from underneath him, and walked down the floor till he came to 2B. He put his ear to the door, listening intently for any sign of life, hostile or the other, on the other side, though was met only with miserable silence. A quick, tumultuous exchange of feet sounded from behind him and instantly he regretted not being even a degree more observant of his surroundings. Tucked away behind a barricade of debris afforded to them by the dilapidation of the building, emerged two men, one of which bore the makes of a .45 snubnose at Joel's chest. The other sort of shuffled on his feat, looking back for affirmation that he should proceed in apprehending the merchant.

"Hurry up, ya dumb ass," barked the armed man impatiently.

"Don't suppose this is the worst reception I've gotten from you fucking goons," Joel retorted wryly as the man bound his arms behind his back with a belt," then again, the lot of you wouldn't know professionalism if you were being fucked by it, so I guess I shouldn't be too baffled."

"Considering the predicament you're in, I'd watch just how pretty you make that mouth of yours," replied one of the men as he shoved Joel through the door of 2B.

You wouldn't be able to tell from the outside, but as Joel stumbled into the room, he was met with an aggregation of shifty-eyed characters. Making out the most ruthless and shamelessly ugly of the lot was a task onto itself, but there, sitting in front of him in one of those old-school reclining comforter-chairs was Archibald himself; in the dirtied and, yes, nearly decrepit flesh. He would've smiled at him with a toothy grin, if he had teeth to speak of, and if the skin around his lips wasn't so chaffed and crusty as to render any movement of that area a completely unpleasant and painful experience. Instead, he merely clicked his teeth as was customary of the near-toothless man, and motioned with his hand to have the man force Joel onto the seat in front of him. Joel took his seat, ignoring the sub-par hospitality and did his best not to inquire as to why the stench of Archibald and his men was so wretchedly poignant. But his best was ill-suited for such a task.

He looked around humorously and then to Archibald,"you know, I don't think you've quite grasped the concept of windows. Sure, the lighting is adequate around here, but you're missing out on the whole beauty of ventilation." The laugh issued was admittedly a little more enthusiastic than due, but even after one of the men had bloodied his mouth with a quick jab, it's defiance rung in the air.

"Excuse me and my men if we aren't as jovial as we typically are. Things haven't been looking up for us exactly, so you'll understand if this experience is a little more hands-on for you." A murmur of laughter circulated the room and prompted one of the men to physically reiterate their misfortune on Joel's face. Archibald raised a hand remonstrating the action after a couple blows, and stood with the assistance of his cane to saunter towards one of the windows mentioned. He peered out of it longingly, saying nothing for a moment, seemingly lost in some reality beyond this one; he was brought back moments later from one of Joel's ineffectual coughs.

"You've been away for quite some time Joel. In fact, you had me and my men awfully worried with your prolonged absence. We thought something happened to you. Were you finally detained for all your unlawful acts of trading and racketeering? Did those blasted infected finally catch up to you. We had no idea? You know it was a truly rotten thing of you to leave without notice like that," he commented sarcastically making his way ever closer to the bound man. "After your little stint in the bay-area I can understand where you might be a little put off on working with us; shoot, having your face nearly ripped off would frighten any man I'm sure. But is that really a sufficient reason to just abandon our arangement."

"It's not like that Archi, I just got myself a little tied up with some legalities, you could say. I had every intention of finding those meds for you, I just had to lie low for a day...or a couple months. But you must have gotten your hands on something, you're looking as pretty as a pageant queen."

A vicious snarl escaped the old, teetering man and somehow he found within himself a reserve of fury. He lashed out with his cane catching Joel a number of times across the eye and jaw, lacerating the flesh with each of his flogs. However, he wasn't in the condition he used to be, in fact, his body had undergone a considerable amount of degradation since the last time they met. His little fit of passion exhausted whatever he was using to keep himself together and he became unwound in a fit of bloody, cacophonous coughs. After several excruciatingly long moments of entertaining his fit, he gathered what little of his composure remained and took his seat on the reclining chair. "You know, I thought to let you make it up to me," he said in between catching his breath, "but I think you'll find my little surprise for you in that bathroom more fitting of your less-than-professional conduct."

[Thrydwulf]

Derby, England
December 12, 2017

Man, this really was a beautiful town.


Came the thought to Christopher, half-formed and reluctantly at that; an observation that even surprised himself. To put it critically, the city looked like some macabre-modern Abatoîre painting, epitomizing the nature of chaos, or at least what remained after Derby had been subjected to chaos. And from his vantage point on the fifty-second story window in the abandoned Stuart Hotel, there was a lot for the artistic mind to draw on. At first glance, one would immediately be met with the Derwent, the now rustic-colored river that wound in and out of the town like some giant, bleeding serpent; shortly before the incident the city had enacted measures to clean it up, made it sparkle and capture the sun in an almost enchanting fashion. Depressing now to see that not only was it filthy and ladden with all manner of refuge and debris, but dead bodies bobbed across its surface perhaps more frequently than they should have. A gruesome pool of gnarled limbs and heads that twisted out of the water as if trying to escape something terrible subsurface.

Christopher took a hit of his cigarette, sucking in the heated smoke, wishing that it was strong enough to toxify his body to the point of death, but he wasn't so lucky. Truth of the matter was, Christopher had frequented this area quite often, more so than any of the other large establishments around town at least, specifically because it was the single tallest building in the city. Not because the view was so profoundly enlightening or because being so high above the waste below provided a delirium unprecedented in this new world; but rather each time he found himself in this spot, feet dangling off the window, gusts of the Atlantic wind caressing his skin and throwing the locks of his hair back, he felt progressively more comfortable with the notion of merely slipping off into a blissful and highly anticipated demise. Truth was, he was tired. Exhausted and plagued with a perpetual feeling of depletion; the constant running, hiding, fighting, looking over his shoulder every time he ventured the streets, jumping at the slightest threat of some other sentient life, were constant assaults on his health and psyche. The transition from acting and reacting to an overpopulated society to fearing the existence of just one other of his kind, was an unimaginably brutal thing.

He slept only on occasion and when he did manage to find a suitable place for respite it was always in the most obscure areas: the apex of a tree, the ventilation shafts of buildings, not to mention the insufficiency of rest. Fortunately for him, the effect of the predicament he was in had begun to subside; what was the difference of fearing a nightmare in your sleep when you were subjected to one on a constant and very conscious-intensive basis when you were awake. But still, the isolation he was experiencing wasn't at all accommodating; it assailed his every thought and followed him like a shadow. Though as nefarious as it all was, he was incapable of feeling comfort in approaching a terminus; it felt cheap, dirty; some sort of weak, irreverent tactic completely beneath him.

So it was the allure of temptation that brought him here, an abandoned room, a vantage point overlooking the city, or at least what was left of it. He flicked his cigarette off the ledge and watched with disdain as it plummeted to the ground below. It was nice out, unusually so; he'd always been a creature of the cold and this English winter had promise to it. He wouldn't stay for long, though he didn't really need that much time for the business he had to conduct. And surely it was a business, or at least he thought so, and if such were the case he was what you might deem a professional at it. Most people after the incident had turned to lives of extremely illicit activity; from the murderous cannibalistic groups that roved the country looking for hapless victims to the craftier and arguably more sinister loaners who sought to take advantage of desperate individuals in any way they could. Christopher's activity of choice wasn't comparably as evil and some people might consider it harmless, though pillaging the country's abandoned homes, hotels, and business establishments was a bit of a necessity for the roamers of this world.

He was a loner, had to look after himself and procure the tools for survival any way he could, even if it was via the disgraceful art of rummaging through someone's stuff who was either dead or questionably dead. Though society had been abolished and its tensile complexity rendered to a more primal form, the capacity for humans--as broken and disparate as they were now--to come together and form units of connections remained. Christopher had encountered a number of such shelters throughout his travel of the country; little communities situated in castles, skyscrapers, or really any building of sizable constitute, coexisting and somehow manufacturing the essentials for survival. He had lived in one for a couple months though the impression he was left with was less than satisfactory and he couldn't help but feel plagued by a sense of altered claustrophobia in such dwellings. As if the buildings they were occupying were nothing more than meat traps for the undead, it was miserable to put it simply. Contradicting maybe, but he was far more comfortable on his own; operating by himself without the responsibility of other's welfare to burden him.

"Hmm, not exactly my style, but a good find nonetheless," Christopher stated blankly as he retrieved a Rolex watch from a disheveled duffle-bag; slinking it back and forth he gave it a brief, irrelevant look-over, eventually slipping it on and tightening it around his wrist. He was more of a mountain-watch kind of guy, rugged albeit pragmatic, such a watch spoke of a more classier, almost genteel individual which he was anything but. Seemed rather absurd to contemplate such a thing, pondering the implications of such a piece of jewelry in the midst of all this dilapidation; though unconventional thinking of this sort existed quite frequently for him. He bent down to further examine a suitcase lying adjacent to the bag, stopping mid-motion as the sound of shuffled footsteps were issued just outside the door.

Christopher swiftly withdrew a pocketknife from his jacket, snapping it open as he tiptoed towards the door pressing his body against the wall and listening intently for any further sound. At first it was silent, absolutely so, but he was hard-pressed to ignore the feeling of apprehension that had nestled itself into his conscious. It was like a sixth-sense, some ineffable although innate understanding that danger was lurking just beyond that door, in this new world you learned to trust your gut-instinct when logic and observation proved insufficient. After all, his gut had gotten him out of many a predicament and had kept him alive in this austere world. Without sparing another moment Christopher tentatively walked backwards to the window, hopping onto its sill and shuffling to the side just beyond its pane. He waited for a moment, waging a psychological assail on the urge to look down, not because he was acrophobic necessarily, though the thought of being seventy feet from certain death wasn't exactly the most settling to notion.

The sound of aged wood being strained resonated throughout the room, as the door opened he realized that not only were his suspicions confirmed, but perhaps he didn't interpret the magnitude of this predicament from that instinct of his. Somebody, or rather, a couple of somebodies walked inside. From his acute memory of the room and the volume of their voices, he deduced that four men were walking around inside, and from the relative lax expression in their voices they weren't searching for him specifically. He heard them rummaging around, flipping the beds over and tossing some of the wooden drawers from the dressers aside as they ransacked whatever Christopher hadn't the opportunity to. He tried to inch his head along the window pane, just enough to afford himself a quick glimpse of the room's new occupants, but after failing twice and being plagued with a sneaking suspicion that he had been caught "observing" Christopher was unwilling to try it again. He shimmied his body across the ledge outlining the other windows on that story, trying his best to sustain his balance while fighting the gusty winds that threatened to pluck him right off the ledge. He rounded the corner of the building and proceeded along the ledge, peering into every window during the process, hoping that at each one he wouldn't be suddenly sent off and delivered into a very uncomfortable and compact death. Eventually he came to a room of promise, using the flats of his hands to coax the window open, and slipped in without incident.

For a moment he simply stood there, unwilling to move lest he alert anyone of his presence, instead he remained unmoved, straining exhaustively and in anticipation of any sound at all. The sound of muffled voices could be heard in the distance, possibly in the room next door, or even further down the hall; the fact that he couldn't be sure forced him to contemplate the idea of exiting the room from the window and waiting it out. But it was early in the morning and if they were new to the area they wouldn't be done fishing in all the rooms until nightfall, leaving him vulnerable not only to any onlookers outside but also the potential to be mauled by the walkers which tended to be more nocturnally active. No, if he was going to act on a plan of escape, it'd have to be soon and quickly. He snapped to the room's door, as silently as his body would allow, and after straining to hear anything outside, cracked the door open just wide enough to allow sight to only one eye. Nothing untoward was visible, taking this as a sign of fortune, he proceeded to creak the door open and slipped through before it could groan and alert the others of his existence. The hallway was likewise void of sound, either the extent of the crew were cooped up in the room he had left moments ago, or they were doing a brilliant job at conducting their business with supreme discretion. Whatever the case, they had allowed him an opportunity to leave without the need for bloodshed and he was going to do his best to utilize it.

He traversed the hallway with as much speed as his diligence would allow, every room contained the possibility of a surprise, and an ambush in quarters as restrictive as these was less than ideal for some one who wasn't all that adept at fighting. He approached each room as cautiously as he could, looking over his shoulder every now and then to assure himself that though he was moving quickly he wasn't doing so recklessly. As he rounded the corner of the hallway and approached the stairs and descended them to the lobby floor, the sight of freedom and safety looked back at him with a forlornly. You can never be certain when life will approach you with a matter of inauspiciousness, but in this world, Christopher had grown to perceive the very distinct inclinations of misfortune. They simply didn't approach in uniform, but afford yourself some time to notice things as they came, and you'd soon find yourself with a precocious awareness of danger. Such as the faint, however lingering scent of cigarette smoke that was settled in the air, not quite freshly sparked, though poignant enough to have been lit at least fifteen minutes ago. And if the men he had encountered in the room all the way up there on the fifty-second floor had taken their time to search the other rooms on the floor, then that would mean some were left behind to guard the entrance, whether that be from intruders might wanting to come in, or --as in his case-- people trying to escape.

True to his suspicions, a man with a rather imposing build, and even more imposing pistol, sat slumped against the desk; relaxed, though the hand that caressed his weapon was more than sufficient an idea to how tuned he really was. If it were Christopher leading this operation, he might have employed a greater degree of tactility, with more men guarding areas where it was easy for loaners to slip through, though even still, the man stationed in the lobby beneath him posed a threat regardless. He racked his head for an escape route, though soon came to the realization that the only safe way for him to exit this building was right there in front of him; he contemplated how much quicker was he to rush the man and drive the knife in some critical part of the man's body than the sentinel's reaction and use of the weapon. The scenario wasn't all that appealing, as the only thing that played back to him was the thought of his body being riddled with bullets before he could even make his assault.

And that's when it came to him. He slowly retreated several steps to allow himself the leisure of noiselessly ascending the next set of stairs before he was found out, with a couple loud and concussive stomps of his feet, Christopher pounded the wooden stairs and then quickly slunk to the staircase above. He wasn't entirely sure if his plan would play out as it had in his head, but from the sound of the man approaching beneath him, he realized it was too late for apprehension. Christopher braced himself against the wall, doing his best to keep his weight balanced so the wood beneath him wouldn't protest. "That you Dale?! I knew you were too bloody-fucking clumsy to go with them . What'd ya' do to make a fool of yerself this time, huh?" Called the voice from the bottom of the stairs.

"Dale?!" Came his voice again, though this time noticeably more distressed.

Moments went by without follow up, Christopher's heart pounded heavily; so vehemently he imagined it would break through his rib cage. He put his hand on its place within his chest, trying his best to regulate his breathing as it broke sporadically. He could feel the blood rushing throughout his body, his head almost nearly throbbing and causing an overwhelming sense of exhaustion to pervade his entire being. He had never done what he was preparing himself to do, and the mere notion of it was so uncharacteristic he couldn't be sure he was processing it in its entirety. Nevertheless the man was nearly upon him, the first instance of his discovery and he would certainly be executed; he was approaching a point of no return and the only solution was resoundingly apparent. Without affording himself even another moment to ponder it all, he leapt over the handrail of the stairwell into a forceful collision with the man. He imagined himself quicker and in the few, very brief moments of his suspension he certainly willed the impact to happen faster, though it didn't. A quick burst of the pistol firing erupted from the staircase, no doubt alerting the others above them. The two plummeted down the stairs, rolling in a tangled blur until they landed at the bottom, apart from each other and very much void of movement.

Christopher tried to surge himself upwards off the ground, the landed flatly, finding himself bereft of the energy to do so. Noticing the oddity of his shirt being drenched, he picked up his hands, holding them in front of his face with incredulity of their obvious bloodiness. In that instance, it felt as if every reserve of energy he had moments ago had been abruptly exhausted; the idea that he had been unsuccessful and even worse been profusely bleeding was an antagonistic force on his conviction. He gingerly caressed the spot of his body where his shirt was saturated in blood, fearful of the discovery of the bullet hole, though couldn't find the point of impact. He suddenly became more frantic, prodding his stomach and chest for the hole he was sure was there, but oddly enough he discovered that there simply wasn't any source of all this blood. It was when he realized that the blood he was covered in didn't actually belong to him, but rather the gaping slit in the man's neck beside him. Apparently, in his assault he had nicked the poor man's jugular in his attempt to drive the blade in as deep as possible. Somehow this bestowed him with a new sense of fervor and he picked himself off the ground, checking once more for the slightest injury, though couldn't find that he had sustained on. The sound of many footsteps sounded above and while he hadn't quite processed the extent of the brutality of his act, he understood that it would all be meaningless if he didn't manage to escape. He bent down swiftly to retrieve the man's discarded pistol and proceeded to pat him down only to discover another knife and nine more bullets for the gun. With that in stow, he bolted out of the hotel lobby, and down the street as fast and far as his enervated legs could take him.

[Thrydwulf]

"C'mon Archi! Look, I don't know what's waiting for me in that bathroom, but I'm getting the feeling that I'm not gonna like it. And you know how I feel about surprises. They're just not for me," Joel said not all that convincingly. Truth of the matter was, Joel wasn't frightened; well perhaps slightly, though fear was to be expected from anyone facing the threat of death with limited means to either evade or inhibit it. Point being, the man could have been more fearful of what fate awaited him in that bathroom; though curiosity seemed to be the emotion to contend with. This wasn't the first time he had been shackled and delivered a death-sentence, in fact, this sort of predicament had become something of a mundanity for Joel. Of course up to this point, he had been successful in finding a way out, though even with the decisive cogs being turned within the mechanism of his brain, he couldn't form a path of clarity to adhere to. So he sat there momentarily as the group of men wordlessly tried to figure out who was responsible for taking him; oddly enough, no one seemed eager to deliver this man, who had made it a habit of undermining this gang, to his demise. They fiddled in their positions, looking at each other accusingly, with a sense of apprehension that was all but impossible to ignore.

"Will one of you damn clowns take him! Because if I have to choose, one of you will be joining our company here," snapped Archibald as he stared at the group incredulously.

One of the lackeys sprung from his placement in the formation, walking with due urgency as he forced Joel off the seat and pushed him towards the bathroom, obviously begrudged that it was he who was tasked with doing this. The entire scene didn't settle well with the merchant and as he ever-so slowly approached the door he pondered just what exactly were they planning on doing with him. The fact that he was restrained and utterly powerless in this situation was the easiest part to come to terms with, it was the other thing, the thing that nobody would utter, the thing that made everyone noticeably more uneasy and they were the safe ones comparatively. The closer he came to that door, the more enigmatic his fate became, until finally he was stopped right in front it; brow drenched and a multitude of goosebumps forming around his body. He was nervous, more so than he had ever been, and considering the man in question, this said a lot.

His executioner--so to speak-- walked around him and unlatched a series of pins, locks, and deadbolts before opening the door finally and delivering a heavy foot to his ass that propelled him forward and into the absolute blackness of the bathroom. Not even a second transpired before the door behind him slammed shut and the sound of Archi's improvised lock system being set back into place echoed throughout the silence therein. He picked himself up off the floor and regained his stance, tiptoeing towards the door as he strained to make out any noise beyond it, any sound or verbal implication as to what his fate would be. The sound of laughter and nonchalance sounded from the other side, nothing even remotely helpful, though this much was encouraging. If they weren't talking about killing him, then perhaps they had lied about their intentions; maybe they were just detaining him here for awhile to make him think about the severity of his betrayal. That must be it! He dropped down on his ass and laid on the floor, wriggling onto his side so he could bring his legs up almost into the fetal position, and then slipped his shackled hands under his feet and right in front of him. Whatever the case, he wouldn't be caught with his pants down if they did decide to come in and finish him off.

He stared at the light seeping underneath the doorway for what seemed like hours, trying his best to interpret the intentions of the men that approached the door from the shadows that were cast underneath. It was an unintelligent endeavor, though he concerned himself with it greatly; he tried to perceive any sense of hostility or urgency to their footsteps, hoping that he could use that as an advantage for the fight for his life he was sure to come. Though nothing ever did, men came and went, and after a while he figured it was just them putting their ear to the door trying to discern if he had broken down or not. Even still, each sound of the many footsteps that came, sent a surge of adrenaline throughout his body, he became wide-eyed and particularly alert for the sound of the locks being unwound that would follow. There was no way he'd be able to overcome the aggregation of men outside the door, though if the opportunity presented itself, he wouldn't hesitate to hurl himself against the window in an attempt to break free. After awhile the footsteps became less frequent, until altogether they came no more, the light from outside disappeared, and in that instant, the room already void of light, became noticeably darker.

He rushed to the door, pressing his ear up against it, though was met only with silence. "Fuck this, they think they're just gonna lock me up in here and leave me to die," Joel issued angrily as he took a couple steps backwards and charged the door leading with his shoulder. His efforts unsurprisingly granted him nothing more than a bruised shoulder and possibly fractured scapula. Though Joel was a stubborn man and it had not settled into his head that the oak of the door was unquestionably reinforced with some manner of metallic brace, and that his body would no doubt break before the door did. He wound himself backward, taking an even larger retreat for next attack he was preparing to mount against the door, and it was in his movement backwards that he found just exactly what his fate would be. He didn't notice it at first, that is to say, his brain had not quite registered the unexpected change in direction his body was going.

Like a poison seeping into his body and making slow work of his nervous system, the realization that he was falling arrived not all that timely. He flailed his arms out to the side uncontrollably, trying for dear life to catch onto something, anything, that would prevent him from compacting into the ground he was due to meet. A searing pain erupted from his left shoulder as it collided into something and out of pure animalistic instinct, he wound his other arm onto whatever support he had the fortune to come across. By the manner in which it rested crookedly to the side, Joel realized the bone of his shoulder had been lodged out of place, the pain that erupted through his body following this realization was enough to confirm his suspicion.
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He did his best to maintain his stance on whatever it was he was grasping, the sensation of nothingness; of perpetual suspension reserved his exhausted consciousness to only thoughts of preserving his dear -- and considering the predicament at hand -- limited life. He didn't realize the extent of his dislocated arm until he fancied the idea of trying to heft himself up onto the wooden piece jutting out of some unseen section of the darkness; an intense pain riveted his being. A jarring reminder of how precarious his affair truly was. Joel held on with a white-hot knuckled conviction, trying to think in spite of the stress consuming his arm from supporting the entirety of his weight. It happened so fast that he couldn't even be surprised by his surrender. Finger by finger he latched on, until moments later his grip weakened, and into the darkness he slipped.

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