~The Star Crossed.~ [Closed]

[Lexxum_Vordic]

Lexxum Vordic was quite the popular mark it seemed.

Didn't even think that they would sell me out so quickly and already I have hired blades out to get me... Lexxum kept a clawed and cautious hand around the handle of his weapon. He held Tap Reaver at bay for the time being. The second man that emerged seemed a lot calmer than the first. Lexxum was trying to make a quick decision. Joaquin explained that he was there for the wan of coin...but the other fella had not revealed his intention just yet.

"I'm fine..." Lexxum said calmly. He could feel his anger and rage beginning to creep up from inside. The dangerous beast ready to be released. But he kept it at bay for a while longer...he needed to know what was their intent. Lexxum kept his eyes on the dagger wielding maniac.

He's young and shifty...he does not know what type of a threat I am and I don't want any unneeded blood on my hands. Lexxum thought to himself as he looked at both men. Lexxum observed the newer individual and saw something in his eyes...a sort of calming wisdom there. That perhaps hinted that he was much older than he appeared. If a fight breaks out, I'll have to plan an escape route, they might not be willing to let me go... Lexxum thought to himself as he looked at the strangers. "I...I won't ask again. What do you two want?" Lexxum had to know, perhaps he could bargain or reason with them. The bastards at Exile's Overwatch were not worth saving...

[Arden]

The standoff continued in silence. Lexxum’s question weighed on Arden’s mind. He could smell the fear as much as hear it in his tone of voice. The more Arden witnessed, the more he felt akin to the creature. He, too, had a troubled past, a misunderstood man trying to make sense of the world.

“Leave him alone,” he said with a snarl.

Joaquin, recognising the time to play out their scene, turned on a heel to face the ‘newcomer’. Daggers spiralled. Eyes glinted. Plans unfurled.

“This mark is mine, his death is mine.”

“I wouldn’t…” Arden rested a hand on the hilt of Kerria.

“Do you plan to stop me?” Joaquin stepped forwards.

The standoff continued with bloodshed. Joaquin charged, nimble footsteps making short work of the distance between pupil and teacher. Arden, with the precision that came only with an aeon of experience, stepped into Joaquin’s pouncing strike and unsheathed his sword. He cut it into a spiralling arc, and the blade dug into the youth’s side and split him in two.

Blood spilling replaced the wind. Arden stood, wiped his sword clean on the hem of his scarf, and sheathed it. Avoiding the corpse, he turned to Lexxum and approached slowly.

“Now. Tell me, stranger. Why is this man hunting you?” Sincerity replaced the rush of adrenaline in his one good eye. The swell of the oni in Arden’s heart subsided, hunger sated.

[Lexxum_Vordic]

He kept his clawed hand on his weapon's hilt for a moment or two longer.

Then, he sheathed his weapon as a sign of standing down.

Tap Reaver hungered in the back of his mind, but Lexxum was used to that small hum of energy in the back of his head. He looked at the stranger and the dying bounty hunter. What did I just witness...? Lexxum wasn't entirely certain what was going on but he was tired, and he was also there searching for his own purpose. The weight of not having a purpose struggled in the creature's mind. He looked at the man before him and considered what he would say.

"I was trying to save someone back in the Exile's Overwatch." Lexxum said truthfully. "The girl I was trying to save was being accosted by someone ruffian or another. So I killed that person in an attempt to do what was right...turns out the fella was a guard. No trial, no nothing. I was simply labelled an exile and banished to the Tular Plains." Lexxum decided that not telling the whole story to the man before him would not be wise. And so he told what he could of what happened. "So now I'm here trying to find my way." Truth be told, Lexxum was just wandering in a general direction. He didn't know if the Tular Plains held any new purpose for him or not.

But what he did know was that he met the man before him. That's a start... Lexxum looked down at the dead boy before him and sighed. Am I cursed to live a life of blood shed...? No matter where I go?

You are my acolyte, Lexxum. Never forget that. Obedience is not an option. Follow the man before you. The Blood God said in Lexxum's troubled mind.

Lexxum blinked as he considered what the Blood God decreed. "I'm just trying to find my way." Lexxum said again not entirely sure what he was supposed to do. But the Blood God had decreed so he would follow the Blood God's command.

[Arden]

“Perhaps…,” Arden trailed off. His informants appeared correct regarding this individual’s potential. He chose his words carefully, to avoid giving away his intent too easily. “Perhaps I can help you there?”

One piercing eye stared at two, bestial pupils. The wind, as ever it did, continued to whip around them oblivious. The smell of blood, unmistakable between pangs of hot glass and sulphur served as a stoic reminder that for now, at least, Arden Janelle was a friend.

“You can?”

“I have been trailing assassins and mercenaries in these lands for a month now, and offer all those I save from their coin hungry malice the same…a chance to start over.”

There was, of course, much more to it than that. Arden assumed now was not the time to reveal his hand. A corpse never made for good business incentive.

“Come with me, let me tell you more about it, and then if you choose to continue on your path, so be it.”

Though the wind howled, and the desert shifted about them, threatening to swallow them whole, Arden made no show of the climate bothering him. He wore loose fitting pants, a bandoleer, a red scarf, with a life of its own, and red hair as armour.

“My name is Arden. Yours?” He held out a hand, gesturing for the man to take it, and for them to be on their way. His fingertips sparkled as the obsidian bangle about his wrist crackled – hinting at a journey unlike any other.

[Lexxum_Vordic]

A clawed hand indeed shook Arden's hands in exchange.

"I am called Lexxum." He responded calmly. He looked down at the dead boy that was killed by Arden. Then he looked at Arden. "You have an interesting mission." Lexxum said with a nod. Ledxxum decided that he would follow Arden's cause. It was early to tell for sure, but he knew he had come to the Tular Plains seeking a purpose.

That was a purpose that landed on Lexxum's lap.

Lexxum walked alongside Arden his eyes ever looking forward...to the distance.

And perhaps to the future itself.

His tail dragged along the cracked earth of the Tular Plains as he walked forward. He took one last look at the dead boy as they began to move. Then, he proceeded to follow Arden.

"Arden..." Lexxum said carefully. "Will more come for me from the Overwatch?" He had to know what he was getting into.

[Arden]

“I’d expect so. If a mark fails, another will always follow.”

Too many organisations on Althanas relied upon persistence as a business strategy. He, too, once faced with a task like the underdogs of Overwatch. Today, however, the cycle would break. Chains would rust. Ties would sever. Lives would continue, despite the whim and will of those who perceived themselves to be gods in a faithless land.

“It is a pleasure, Lexxum.” He held out his hand again, as a show of conviction.

“Where are we going?”

“To a safe haven in Scara Brae,” a white lie, though safe haven was earnest. “No harm will come to you under my protection, though I cannot speak enough of truth – only show you.”

His handshake lingered, like the wind; it permeated every bit of the valley and far beyond. Though Lexxum believed himself to be fortunate, it was the Silent Swordsman, no longer silent, which had come upon a favourable endeavour.

[Lexxum_Vordic]

"Scara Brae..." Lexxum said calmly. Lexxum began to wonder about the man's identity, but would respect the man's secrets. Lexxum looked around for a moment and then considered everything that had just transpired. [b]"I can't go back to the Overwatch, do you have another means of travel?"]/b] Lexxum asked.

He wasn't sure what type of resources the man had access to.

All he was certain was the man had offered a path.

Normally, Lexxum would ask the Blood God for guidance...this was not one of those times.

He was following his own course at that point and had agreed to follow Arden to whatever ends that may lead.

Lexxum considered the situation at hand...a thought bothered the crimson warrior. Something is troubling me...I can't quite place what it is though... Lexxum looked up at the sky and saw the afternoon sun glowing eternally across the bosom of the sky. Then he looked at Arden. "We should get going if we are to get to Scara Brae before night falls here." Lexxum said, the Tular Plains were never a place to take lightly.

Lexxum stole an uncomfortable glance back at the Overwatch.

Somehow, he could hear a laughter in the back of his mind that belonged to those bastards back there.

Fucking guy was a guard... Lexxum accepted his fate.

[Arden]

The moment Arden’s hand embraced Lexxum’s, the world upended. Haida vanished, a peal of white light searing the eyeballs, permeating into whatever soul the two men had left to call their own. Arden tried, many times over the years to put the process to words. Duffy did it better, though it required a lot of gin to understand him.

Castle Brandybuck appeared before the duo, and the firmament became dusty outcrop protruding from a waterfall as long as it was tall. Baroque, to say the least, the bastion stood on a plateau at the centre of the edge of a lake as big as Radasanth. The island on which this grandiose introduction to the underworld of the Scara Scourge floated amidst an endless starry sky, formed from the remnants of the Aria – the realm in the Tap in which the Thayne Tantalus holds court.

“Forgive the diversion. We have to come via this place to return to Scara Brae.”

“What is it?” Lexxum looked up at the castle’s stained glass windows, which lined each of the front towers like leering eyes, and traced the jagged peaks of the battlements.

“A home from home. I’ll show you around one day.” Arden smirked.

A wellspring of lavender and nausea filled both their stomachs, sign that it was time to leave. White firmament took them again, and they plummeted through time and space until they landed, somewhat awkwardly, in a well-stocked wine cellar half a mile beneath the city streets of Scara Brae’s capital.

Thirty feet by forty, the cellar was the Maester’s personal storehouse of fine wines, bribers, and liquor. The deepest room in the Headquarters, only Arden had access to it, save for his siblings (whom he suspected helped themselves a little too often). He pointed to the northern wall, where a thick oak door embraced in black iron loomed.

“Follow me, if you would. We shall retire to the study and I can tell you more about my proposition.” He walked on, Lexxum in tow. “Tell me more about yourself?”

[Lexxum_Vordic]

During the sudden transportation from Haidia's Tular Plains to Scara Brae...Lexxum saw things.

His mind burned with the rage of The Blood God.

Lexxum was a devout follower of that old pagan religion...something that modern Althanians spoke about in hushed whispers. Lexxum saw in his mind, The Blood God before him. Staring with a satisfied smile at his prized student. Lexxum nodded back towards The Blood God. The two shared an intrinsic connection of student and teacher.

When he blinked, it was over.

It was something like being born again...

Lexxum felt tremendous pain course from the pit of his stomach...but strangely...he did not fear it. No. He embraced it.

He followed Arden towards the castle...

The fellow asked a complicated question. "I am student of The Blood God." Lexxum said truthfully. "A warrior is what your people would call me. I have fought since i learned to walk...it is my people's way." Lexxum saw compassion in the eyes of Arden's followers and allies. "On the battlefield...it is the only life I have ever known." Lexxum never spoke very much...and it was difficult to find words. "I killed a Guard in the Exile's Overwatch. Trying to save a woman...she was pretty beyond words." Lexxum explained why the bounty hunters were after him.

"I didn't know he was a guard but I tried to do the right thing...it always goes to shit." Lexxum looked at Arden for a moment, there was a pained expression on Lexxum's face. "The Blood God lead me to Haidia, that's the other reason I was there. Though saving the girl was my own act." Lexxum sighed. "When I killed that guard...she summoned others...I was branded an Exile at that point." Lexxum looked at the various tapestries and carpets in the castle.

There were scenes etched on them dealing with Tantalus history and other important aspects of history...

Lexxum was no historian, but he respected pretty art...it brought a calmness to him.

The old warrior followed closely behind Arden the feelings of pain still coursing through his body from the sudden teleporation...