Log:Broken Blade: Echoes of the Past
| Date | Title | People | Location |
| April 28, 2015 | Broken Blade: Researching the Enchantments | Kyson and Godwyn | Fernwood Pub |
Early evening in the city and the usual crowd has gathered at the Fernwood for a few drinks, a meal and - as luck would have it, a show. Patrons are stunned into surprised silence as they watch a young mage seething with anger as he holds a broken sword in one hand and a local thug in the other. The thug, who can't be more than two or three years older than Kyson, has panic in his eyes as the wizard presses the man against the wall screaming at him. "Tell me why you deserve to live!" He seethes as his eyes start to take on the faint, blue glow of arcane magic. "Tell me why!" He repeats. The thug finally gulps out something close to a sound or two but nothing near a real word.
The bartender yells at Kyson saying, "It's ok boy...he didn't take much. We don't need to call the King's Guard." Another patron calls out to say, "He always steals ale - it's no big deal." Kyson growls out, "He broke the law!"
"The question is not whether it is against the law. The point of that is moot."
Blue and silver. Her features placid, blond hair tied in a neat pony tail. Godwyn enters and observes the situation with all the passivity of an everyday occurrence. "The question... is why people steal in the first place." The crowd begins to part as she makes her way toward the man that Kyson has cornered. "Sir... your name?"
The 'thug' manages to finally speak when Kyson relaxes his grip a little. The young man's strength has been enhanced somehow - for there would be no way that the scholastic mage is able to hold the street-born thug in his place so easily. "Hav...Havryn," the thug offers. Kyson's right hand grips the sword's handle, ready to start stabbing the man in half a second. For the perceptive observer, the crest between the wings of the sword's hilt glows brightly - that of a skull.
GAME: Godwyn rolls Intelligence+2: (11)+4+2: 17 to Kyson GAME: Godwyn rolls Sense Motive: (5)+15: 20 to Kyson
<OOC> Godwyn says, "Nationality, Race, and getting a vague sense of his personality... or rather, his trustworthiness." <OOC> Kyson says, "the thug is a local product who has a history of stealing food, ale, etc. He's a fairly 'petty' crook."
Godwyn glances at him for a moment, and then smiles. "You don't have any money, do you. In fact..." She tilts her head to the right. "I don't think you've had any for a long time. What happened?"
The bartender yells at Kyson to let the thug go - he's harmless. Kyson's eyes glow brighter and brighter and fiddles with the broken sword blade in his hand, eager to slice through the man's gut to teach him a lesson about breaking the law. The presence of Godwyn gives the mage pause - enough that he decides not to kill the man in his grip. "Go..." he tells the thug who, once released, bolts for the door like a rabbit out of a box.
Then, turning on the paladin, Kyson's eyes flare with blue-white flame for a moment - the blade quivering in his hand.
Godwyn glances at the blade for a brief moment... then him. "That's right. Keep looking at me. Don't look anywhere else, not even at the bartender." Her voice was slow, methodical. It had a pace and a cadence to it. "I want you to imagine a book in your hands. Just... a book. It can be open, or it can be closed. Just hold the book... feel the cover. The pages. Get a sense of it."
The light in the mage's eyes start to fade slightly as he turns his head to the side in confusion. The term 'book' seems to confuse the poor boy - but the distraction is enough to keep him from racheting up another knotch or two. The blade twitches in his hand, ready to drink in the life of its next victim but the 'host' doesn't seem to know what to do with all that power.
Godwyn nods. "Good. You can feel it now, the texture of the pages, the feel of the cover. Now smell it. The smell of old pages, yet preserved. The smell of the ink." She glances toward the bar tender with a nod. Everything's fine now. Then she focuses back toward Kyson. "Nod if you can smell it, this book; if you can feel it..."
Kyson slowly nods, still tilting his head to the side in a fairly owl-like expression. The blade seems momentarily forgotten as the blue light in his eyes continue to fade over the few minutes that Godwyn has his mind elsewhere. Still silent, he looks around the frame of the paladin as though he wasn't exactly seeing her as a person but more like a strange, yet somehow familiar, representation of a memory.
"Good. You can see the book. Smell it. Feel it..." She smiles. "Now I want you to open it. There's writing there, and you get the sense that it's important. And as you begin to read, it details something..." She places a hand on his shoulder. "...you can speak of it, or not. But as you read, your mind begins to clear."
And like that, the blue flames have burned out in Kyson's eyes and he seems to have snapped out of the odd 'trance' he was in. With a shake of his head to clear his thoughts, the mage glances around to orient himself. A look of shock and surprise wash over his face as he looks to the nearby table where his shoulder bag was left. "Wait...wha?" he seems confused still and then feels the handle of the sword in his hand. Turning his attention to the blade and then to the flag wrap on the desk. "M'lady?" he asks confusedly.
Godwyn removes her hand from his right shoulder. "That sword... almost made you kill someone for petty theft. And the man had not a cent to his name. Probably just hungry and desperate." She gives the blade a distasteful glare. "It's not the blade's fault. There are worse things on there than just an invisibility spell, I assure you. Come, let's talk."
Kyson nods vaguely and wanders over to the table to collect the tattered remains of the flag to re-wrap the broken blade; still unsure as to how it came to be found in his hand. "What...was...what happened?" he asks confusedly.
Godwyn sits, and says nothing for a time... then she sighs. "I don't blame you. You have in your hands a very potent, very much alive weapon. One that I see has been tainted by something evil. Didn't know how much... until now." She glances toward the hilt. "When you were poised to kill that man, I did not see the crest of the noble house. Instead, I saw a skull..."
Kyson glances down to the blade, now wrapped securely in the flag. "Skull? I'm not familiar with that crest in Rune..." his answers are still slow and groggy as though he's not exactly putting two and two together just yet. "I don't ... I mean, I remember reading and was examining the blade and..." he glances towards the bar where several patrons stare back with alarmed and concerned faces, "...saw someone...steal..." And that's where his voice drops to but a whisper. "He broke...the...law..." The voice is dark, malevolent, rigid but quiet, hidden...insidious. Snapping himself out of the odd wash of a mood, Kyson shivers as though a cold chill ran up his spine and he reaches for the bundle to put it into his shoulder bag and out of sight.
Godwyn places a hand on his right shoulder. "Did you feel that? That chill down your spine?" She nods. "When I looked at the sword, so did I. The voice you spoke in just now was not yours."
NOTE: As Godwyn touches Kyson she senses the presence of evil around him. It's here. Though not -necessarily- with Kyson, it's a lingering presence; like the scent of rotting meat hanging in the air.
Godwyn's face twists into a grimace. "You may not see it, or feel it. But I do. Even now it's still here, the presence of evil." She pauses here. "Do you know how long it takes the mind to focus on a subject?"
Kyson raises an eyebrow in question at her querry. "Uh...no?" He doesn't seem to understand the point of the question or where she might be going with it. Reaching for his journal, he slides it across the table to him rather protectively - as though it were some kind of holy symbol that could drive away the 'gloom' that rests upon his soul. "Why do you ask?"
Godwyn nods. "Ten seconds."
She closes her eyes. "It takes ten seconds for the mind to evaluate a situation, process it, and make a decision. It takes ten more seconds to maintain focus long enough to think any deeper than the initial reaction." Her eyes remain closed. "How long did it take for you to draw that weapon? Ten seconds? Five?" She opens her eyes. "...or none?"
Kyson is confused and slightly lost with the question but adds, "I'm... not sure." Somewhere off in the tavern, near the bar, a man's voice calls out, "Quick as a flash he was... he snached up Hal before I could see it and had the blade to 'is throat fast as ya please."
Godwyn nods. "None then."
She takes in a breath. "I told you the weapon wasn't evil. I wasn't joking about that. But something has happened to it... someone made that weapon into a tool for order... but heartless, merciless order." She shakes her head. "I've seen the result of order, of law, at any cost. It's called tyranny, Kyson. That weapon is clouding your judgment and removing any compassion you have left... for the sake of the correct thing. Not the *good* thing."
Kyson is more confused and a hint of fear starts to creep in behind his eyes. "I...don't know what happened," he begins, his voice quavering in uncertainty. He saw his hand holding the blade when he 'woke up' out of whatever trance he was in. He held it like he knew what to do with it - knew what it wanted. There's an underlying uncertainty in his tone - as though he's not really sure what he knows now. He's never lost control of himself like that before but there had to be something burried deep within him that responded to the sight of the bully. The sword couldn't spark that from nothing - that sense of injustice to already be there and simply bloom into life with a bit of help from whatever might be within the blade. "...but thank you for stopping me."
Godwyn smiles. "Remember... an eye for an eye leads to a nation of the blind. And in that nation, the man with one eye is king." She tilts her head to the right. "Would you be the one to take eyes, Kyson? Or would you be the one to help others see?"
"In brightest day..." the young wizard starts to recite, "...in darkest night..." the words seem familiar to him as though he had memorizd them when he was younger and needed only to think of them to bring the phrases back to his mind. "...No evil shall escape our sight." His words gain in strength as they gain a bit in volume. "Let those who worship Maugrim's might,"... and that's when the flesh of his forearms start to ripple with goose bumps - clearly aroused by the memories. "..Beware...our Eldritch Light!"
Godwyn chuckles. "I think there's a key phrase in that... *evil*. Just because someone steals... doesn't make them evil. The question is... did they steal with the intent of deliberately harming others? Taking from them without any consideration but for themselves?" She shakes her head. "I could sense no evil in that man." She glances toward the man that called out. "He usually comes around here, right? Has anyone else helped him eat? Given him work?"
The tavern folk simply scoff at the idea of 'helping' Havryn. "He usually just helps himself - to whatever he wants..." one person adds. "That is -one- view of evil, m'lady..." Kyson answers and seems to chafe at something under his robes. Maybe he's still tweeked about losing a few moments of time or perhaps he's not agreeing with the Paladin's conception of evil but something's got his staff in a twist. "If you'll forgive me m'lady I think I should return to the academy and rest...."
Kyson pauses as he turns to leave the tavern and glances back to the paladin, "That...would be nice. Thank you."
Godwyn stands and bids farewell to the tavern before making her way toward Kyson. "So you don't remember anything during that span of time?" Her features took on a troubled cast.