[color=#1A1A3B][b][u][h1][sub][sub][sub]Farren[/sub][/sub][/sub][/h1][/u][/b][/color]		  absently noted Ophelia and Torquil’s brief exchange as the man complied and erased the chalk scrawlings.  Farren had managed to read them in the pause between Ophelia’s firm suggestion and Torquil actually wiping the writing. He supposed it made sense why Ophelia might not want anyone else to see the script. He didn’t have long to ponder on that however, for the door soon burst into splinters beneath the beastly assault  from beyond the threshold. In the next moments a mostly transmogrified yharnamite lumbered into the room, quickly followed by a black almost bug-eyed figure with ghostly pale skin. A flicker of recognition flitted through his mind at the sight of both, letting him know he’d seen similar before…though he wasn’t really sure precisely when or where.

Yet, the features of the pale-skinned man seemed…twisted somehow…less human, more something else. Gaunt? Skeletal? Like some fell wight had sucked the vigor from a man even as the scourge had twisted his shape. Farren’s grip on his single drawn blade tightened, his eyes narrowing, pulse pounding, blood hot in his veins.

Then the pale figure spoke, his smile wide and deeply wrong in far too many ways to count. Farren’s stance shifted subtly, one foot sliding out in back in a half circle so he was a quarter turned from them, his empty hand leading, his sword hand somewhat behind the leading line of his body, held out to the side. Where before he’d simply been wary, that unnerving smile and the words that fell from the figure’s lips had put him entirely on guard. His azure eyes piercing into the figure’s obsidian gaze, Farren spoke up.

[color=#1A1A3B][b]“Kindly…”[/b][/color] he gritted out, before he continued, the rest of his sentence tense, but less forced, [color=#1A1A3B][b]“…rephrase. Surely you mean to say ‘recruit,’ or perhaps… ‘ally with,’”[/b][/color] he finished, offering them an olive branch, as it were. Something in him felt…personally affronted by the man’s words and his gut told him that he has a past with being [i]used[/i]…perhaps even [i]controlled[/i] somehow. The idea made his blood burn like magma beneath his skin, scalding away his patience. His knuckles were white around the handle of his curved blade and though he hadn’t clenched his other hand, the fingers were teasing up towards the grip of his second saber.

Between his words, his manner, and his stance it was clear that he felt the man better offer some explanations before Farren decided to take matters into his own hands.