[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/250324/b71cf5ab5cebec9b4e857200f7c42a8b.png[/img] [img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/250324/dc185f5e06aa08f3af9fbb79b4040da5.png[/img] [color=EBA536][b]Location:[/b][/color] [color=E579FF]Top Deck[/color] [color=E579FF][b]Race:[/b][/color] [color=EBA536]Dark Elf[/color] & [color=E579FF]Human[/color] [color=E579FF][b]Class:[/b][/color] [color=EBA536]Artificer[/color] & [color=E579FF]Rogue[/color] [color=EBA536][b]Interactions:[/b][/color] [@Tae] Meiyu; [@Helo] Ezekiel [color=EBA536][b]Equipment:[/b][/color] [hider] [color=EBA536][b]Scratch[/b][/color] Medical bag Tinkerer's kit Arcane spindlelock (shortened) musket Spindlelock pistols x2 Hand axes x2 [color=E579FF][b]Val[/b][/color] First-aid bag Tinkerer's kit Spindlelock pistols x2 Steel daggers x2[/hider][color=E579FF][b]Attire:[/b][/color] [hider] [color=EBA536][b]Scratch[/b][/color] Dark brown, knee-length coat Black waistbelt Grey button-up shirt Dark brown trousers Heavy leather boots [color=E579FF][b]Val[/b][/color] Off-white shirt Red ribbon tied around left arm Brown hooded coat Brown trousers Leather boots Goggles on her head[/hider][color=EBA536][b]Gold:[/b][/color] 50 [color=E579FF][b]Injuries:[/b][/color] [hider] [color=EBA536][b]Scratch[/b][/color] NA [color=E579FF][b]Val[/b][/color] NA[/hider] [/center] The man understood! [color=E579FF]“Yes! Scratch’s a nice elf.”[/color] Vallena beamed at him and nodded, loose tresses dancing with delight. Most of the people her dark elf friend and she had met before had been either wary or outright hostile towards the former at first, and had been slow to change their minds, if they ever did. Some amongst Stormrider’s crew still viewed Scratch with suspicion, Vallena knew, and that really, [i]really[/i] irked her. Sure, he could say some pretty strange things from time-to-time – like now – and many of the things he did were questionable, but it was always for a good cause! Like saving lives, or fixing stuff. Well, almost always for a good cause. Scratch could be really scary when, as the man said, people got on his bad side, and that was when he would do really scary things. Just the thought of some of the things he had done sent a shiver down her back. But people rarely got on his bad side, and so those weren’t things he did often. He still did more good stuff than he did bad, as Vallena saw it. That made Scratch a good enough elf, in her books, regardless of what anyone said. And now there was one more person that agreed with her! That made it five whole people whom she knew that didn’t get put off by Scratch upon their first meeting. Maybe things were starting to look up. This person was an interesting one, too. Mostly because he was missing an eye, and that immediately lit a curious blaze in Vallena’s mind. How did he lose it? And when? Did he ever miss the eye, or had he grown used to the injury? Would he let her take a look at the wound? Or Scratch? Maybe Scratch could build him a replacement. The dark elf was great at tinkering and making things, after all. And then there were all the scars on the man’s face. What adventures had he had? Were they fun? Exciting? Scary? Did he meet any strange or interesting or nice or bad people? And what about the places he had been, what were they like, and what did the people eat, and what did they wear and speak and do– Vallena quickly pulled herself from her thoughts, just as the first of many questions was about to leave her lips. A light flush coloured her cheeks. Scratch had pointed this out about her before; she was an excitable girl, and one easily distracted from her tasks. But could he blame her? It wasn’t often that she met anyone new outside of when Stormrider took on fresh recruits, and working in an airship’s engine room or surgery didn’t give her many opportunities to interact with passengers. But when Scratch was right, he was right. The two of them still had things to do. She blinked up at the man. He seemed cool. He probably was cool, and he was nice to Scratch too! Thus, he needed a name. Just as she called Scratch, Scratch, Vallena decided that from now on, she was going to call this man Eyepatch. Or Mister Eyepatch, if she was feeling formal. [color=E579FF]“I’ll get someone to help you carry–”[/color] she began, but cut herself off when she saw that Eyepatch carried the boy with absolutely no trouble. He didn’t even seem to feel the weight in his arms. [color=E579FF]“Or nevermind. The sick bay’s just down below and all the way at the bow!”[/color] She reminded him again. [color=E579FF]“Don’t worry if you forget, that happens to me a lot. Just ask someone for directions! Or you can just walk in the opposite direction of the engines’ sounds! Scratch taught me that, and it’s always worked for me!”[/color] She waved Eyepatch off, then turned around. A shudder rippled through her as she laid eyes on the scary lady again. There was something about her that didn’t sit well with Vallena, and it wasn’t just what she had said, even if that had done plenty to make the girl want to run very, very far away from her. But it was to do with the scary lady’s airs. It reminded Vallena of people she used to avoid when she had been living on the streets, people who were simply dangerous, and not to be messed with. Or maybe it was because she had broken another thief’s arm without a second thought. Vallena shook her head. There wasn’t any need for her to be afraid. Really, there wasn’t! She had Scratch around, after all, and she knew he would always look out for her, just as how she looked out for him. There was absolutely nothing for her to be worried about. But still, she kept her movements quiet and herself scarce as she slipped behind Scaerthrynne. The more the dark elf listened to the woman, the more he found his interest piqued. And he liked it; it was a welcome change from the usual, boring fare who booked passage aboard Stormrider. But then again, he supposed that born killers weren’t exactly all that common. And a born killer was exactly what this woman struck him as. The way she spoke of poisoning; the glint in her eye; the way those words flowed so easily, so fluently from her lips, as if they were but her usual thoughts given voice, they all told a story of a person who didn’t just work with death, but had grown up around it. However, she had reacted somewhat strangely to Vallena’s quiet, spur-of-the-moment remark. A soft-spot, or a sore one, perhaps? Or maybe this woman wasn’t as tough as what he had thought? He shrugged mentally. None of it mattered, in the end. She was a passenger, and would soon enough be nothing more than a memory, if even that. It was more likely that she’d just fade into being just one, vague face amongst the thousands Scaerthrynne had seen on Stormrider. [color=EBA536]“Can’t argue with you there,”[/color] he replied anyway. This conversation was an interesting one, and it would be a shame to simply let it go to waste. “The fear of what’s to come, and knowing that it will come, is usually a great incentive for someone to start talking. Or to just make them die in fear, if that’s your sort of thing.” He shrugged, physically this time. [color=EBA536]“But I’ve to admit, when I did things like that, I didn’t use poisons. Diseases were more of my thing, and it was usually for–”[/color] [center][i]“Why are you doing this?” The man’s voice was rough, much like the days-old growth covering his jaw. He laid on a simple bed, the sort one might find in a prison, his limbs lashed to its frame by thick, leather restraints. Sweat, and only sweat, covered his body in a thin sheen. He drew in a breath, choked on it, and coughed. Metal rattled loudly as he bucked against the straps on his wrists and ankles. The laboured breath he released after his fit bubble in his throat. In a dark corner, unlit by the single, oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, Scaerthrynne sat, perched on the edge of a table. That one piece of furniture was the sturdiest thing in this fetid cell. In his hands, he held a sheaf of papers, which he flipped through one by one. [color=EBA536]“Mister Edgar Federland,”[/color] he read aloud, ignoring the man’s question. [color=EBA536]“You’re an unpleasant son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you?”[/color] The man turned his head as much as he could, squinting his eyes to peer through the dark. “Fucking elf, I should’ve known,” he spat. [color=EBA536]“You’ve got a great deal of charges,”[/color] Scaerthrynne continued, and continued to ignore him. [color=EBA536]“Let’s see here…Twenty burglaries, seven murders, five kidnappings and…Twenty rapes?”[/color] He looked up from the sheaf, a wry smile on his face. [color=EBA536]“You must wake up very early to get all this done in…What? A week? Two, at most? Did you ever consider putting this sort of work ethic to other things?”[/color] “Fuck you.” The edge in the man’s words were blunted by the hacking cough that tore his throat raw. [color=EBA536]“Oh, I’m afraid your fucking days are over, Mister Federland.”[/color] Scaerthrynne hopped off the table. He turned, humming a tune as he ran his hand across a row of syringes before selecting one, holding it up to the lamp and inspecting its contents. [color=EBA536]“Your town is sick,”[/color] he said matter-of-factly. [color=EBA536]“Very sick. But I’m sure you know that already. How many died in your prison? Thirty, was it?”[/color] “It’s no fucking business of mine!” An edge of fear in his words. “This fucking town sentenced me to hang, what’s their suffering got to do with me?” [color=EBA536]“Nothing,”[/color] Scaerthrynne replied with a shrug and approached the bed. [color=EBA536]“And everything. You’re right, they did sentence you to hang, but I think you’ll find that so long as you’re dead, your fellow townsfolk won’t really care about the process of it.”[/color] He flicked a finger against the syringe. [color=EBA536]“But let me go back to your first question. Why am I doing this? Well, first of all, your town hired me to find a cure for this plague, and in order for me to do that, I must first know how it progresses.”[/color] “Get the fuck away from me!” The man struggled, but the restraints were too tight. Too secure. The bedframe rattled loudly. It skidded and scraped against the bare, stone floor, but otherwise, he achieved painfully little. “You fucking mad elf! Get away!” [color=EBA536]“I must know how it kills, you see,”[/color] Scaerthrynne went on. He watched the man fight, watched his muscle bulge, and his veins pop as he fought in vain against his lashings. The dark elf clicked his tongue, then held the syringe like a dagger. [color=EBA536]“You’re only making this harder for yourself, you idiot.”[/color] Then, without another word, he stabbed the needle into the man’s gut. The man howled, an otherworldly, blood-curdling sound. [color=EBA536]“It doesn’t matter where I prick you, you see. This syringe,”[/color] he said and pushed on the plunger, [color=EBA536]“is filled with infected pus, taken from the dead.”[/color] The man’s screams turned to sobs, then to weeping pleas. “Just fucking kill me, you gods-cursed demon!” Scaerthrynne pulled out the syringe and tossed it aside. A wicked smirk came over his face. [color=EBA536]“And that brings me to my second reason for why I’m doing this.”[/color] He stepped away from the bed, returned to his perch, and picked up the sheaf of papers again. Pulling a pencil from his ear, he tapped the blunt end of it against the sheaf. [color=EBA536]“It’s interesting. Wouldn’t you agree?”[/color][/i] [/center] [color=EBA536]“–medical studies and such.”[/color] Scaerthrynne blinked. That was a strange memory his mind had brought up. More irksome was that it was a very vague one – he had experimented on people many times before, and had done so under conditions that were similar. That recollection could have come from anywhere. He shook his head slightly, disguising the movement as a mere tilt of his head, as if to work out a crick from his neck. [color=EBA536]“Anyway,”[/color] he said, clearing his throat. [color=EBA536]“I have other things to attend to. That was a good talk. Enjoy the rest of your journey.”[/color] He paused. [color=EBA536]“And it’s alright,”[/color] he said, responding to her apology. [color=EBA536]“Val was probably just put off by what we were talking about. She’ll learn to get used to it.”[/color] He looked down at the girl. [color=EBA536]“Especially if she wants to be a surgeon in her own right, someday.”[/color] [color=E579FF]“But not today,”[/color] Vallena piped up. Scaerthrynne chuckled quietly and nudged her away so that he could start walking towards the bar. [color=EBA536]“Yeah, not today, or yesterday, or tomorrow. I find myself asking when exactly, sometimes.”[/color] He glanced at the girl with a knowing look. She didn’t respond, and instead looked away with a nervous giggle. For a while, they walked in awkward silence – Scaerthrynne somewhat level with the woman, and between her and Vallena. The girl trailed just a step behind him, biting on her lip and looking this way and that. Then, she picked up the pace, squeezing between Scaerthrynne and the woman. She swallowed hard and hesitantly reached for the woman’s sleeve, tugging on it gently. [color=E579FF]“Hey, uh,”[/color] she began, averting her eyes for a while before looking up at the woman. [color=E579FF]“Sorry. For saying that you’re scary earlier. You are, though, for breaking that boy’s arm, but um…You don’t look scary. You just–”[/color] Scaerthrynne sighed, covered the girl’s mouth with a hand, and pulled her back. [color=EBA536]“She means she accepts your apology, and that it’s okay,”[/color] he quickly said to the woman.