Travels

[Penance]

Briathos sat at a desk, hunched over the pages of a book, amber eyes hungrily devouring its contents. The book contained the schematics of an artifice machine designed to reap crops during the harvest and although it was an agricultural instrument, gears had already begun to turn in his head on how to weaponize it. Despite Alerar’s generosity to grant him access to its library, almost all the schematics to military application artifice was off-limits to him.

He had been at it for months. Studying dusty old tomes, reading brand-new manuscripts fresh off the press, and absorbing all the knowledge on artifice that he could take-in before his senses overloaded and he had to rest.

Standing up from the uncomfortable desk where he had been seated, he stretched his legs on a brisk walk to return the manual he had been reading back to where he had gotten it, before exiting through the library’s northern entrance, smiling at each person he passed on his way.

The fresh air was an obvious relief for him from the stuffiness of the library, evidenced by the deep breaths he took as he marched through the streets and headed to the ‘Great Tavern.’ He had received a mysterious note asking him to meet someone there and he was both bored and curious enough to investigate. Wrapping himself tightly in his worn traveler’s cloak he kept his face obscured, he didn’t want whoever was looking for him to spot him right away. He didn’t even know what they looked like, yet from what the note said they seemed to know an uncomfortable amount about him.

[Penance]

The tavern was always busy from his previous experiences and today was no exception. He looked around, failing to notice anyone that stuck out or seemed unusually suspicious.

Taking a seat at the counter where he had a good view of the door and the rest of the tavern; he ordered himself a drink — something cold and soothing – something that reminded him of Andvall. It relaxed him and let his mind wrap itself around the task ahead.

The gold ambrosia the bartender gingerly poured streamed out of the pitcher like an ice cap melting off a Salvic mountainside until his glass was filled to its brim. Good ‘ol Salvic gold.

He waited, and he drank.

The ball was in their court.

It seemed like an eternity that he sat there, but it had only been ten minutes. Still, more than enough time to invest in the pursuit of meeting someone that had anonymously sent him a letter. He had been about to stand up and leave when a tall, slender Coronian woman with gorgeous raven hair approached him.

“Hello,” she said, smiling, her voice soft and sweet.

“Hello,” he replied with a grin. “Can I buy you a drink?” If she had sent him the letter then it wasn’t a complete waste of his time.

“Sure,” she took a seat beside him, her head tilted towards him to study his features, his own eyes struggling to keep eye contact and not stare at her throat and the suggestive ‘v’ the collar of her dress made to tease him with just a glimpse of her chest.

He waved over the bar tender, “what would you like Miss?”

“Coronian whiskey, if you’d be so kind.”

The bartender nodded and walked off.

“Coronian whiskey, eh? You’re my kind of woman. Fiery and with a passion that needs to be…” he stopped, searching for the right word, “...fed.”

The bartender returned with her drink and set it on the countertop. She gave him a cute smile before lifting her glass and drinking its contents in one quick swig.

He was impressed by this woman before but now he was thoroughly smitten.

“Excuse me,” a gruff voice chimed in beside him. “We need to speak with you,” the man was tall, well-built, middle-aged, and wore an expression that meant business. He had a blade on his sword belt and the ‘we’ he described were the two men that stood on each side of him with similar dispositions but were half his years in age. It only took him a glance to surmise they were all trained killers.

“Come with us,” the younger one on his left said, a sense of urgency mingled with a threat in his voice.

“No, fuck off. Can’t you see that I’m busy?”

The man he told to fuck off didn’t seem to like his response; he judged by the way he ripped his sword free from its sheath, bringing its edge whirling about for Brathios. He responded, reflexes lightning-fast as his own blade sung against its leather scabbard and parried the man’s sword, riposting it into the center man’s throat. He then brought his blade’s tip traveling along the bottom of the stupefied man’s sword, his mouth still agape from the realization that he’d killed his friend and commander causing him in his inexperience to step back too late.

Barathios’ sword skewered him through his stomach, its blood-lacquered tip jutting out his back like an antennae.

He heard a loud yelp beside him, only now noticing that the dark-haired woman had drawn her dagger to fight off the third man. She lay dead in a pool of crimson vitae. Her killer stood grimly over her corpse and never saw Brathios coming, with one efficient stroke the man’s neck was relieved of its burden of carrying his big, dumb head, its final image was the brutal sight of its headless body collapsing to the floor as it rolled across the tavern.

The bartender had run out to find the authorities and most of the crowd had dispersed, only a few remained, watching him search the bodies as quick and thoroughly as he could. All he managed to find was a note on one of them that read, "go to the ‘Great Tavern’ tomorrow and kill the man we spoke of if you see him." Their weapons were plain, unadorned, their clothing and armor also lacking any motif. The only peculiar thing he found was that each had the same tattoo on their wrist. If only one of them had it, it wouldn't have been unusual, but each bore the same mark in the exact same spot: a dragon's head with its jaw open devouring an elk.

He took their coin purses and the note before leaving out a window in the back. Just in time, he mused, seeing the barkeep returning with a handful of guards in tow as he re-emerged onto the main street from an adjoining alleyway and fused into the convoluted traffic of the city.

The whole ordeal had left a sour taste in his mouth. He didn’t even know the woman's name yet she had died for him all the same. She was a nameless beauty plucked from the earth before her time but she would not go unavenged. He would see to it the guilty were fonud and held accountable. He'd wring the names of the culprits out of an information broker, the city had too many of them.

He'd make everyone responsible pay with their lives, an untransmutable commodity.

He headed home, washed up, changed his clothes and collapsed on his straw bed.

Tomorrow the hunt began.

[Penance]

Brathios looked at the short, gaunt-faced Dark Elf sitting behind a desk. His name was Skarvano Morvona. He was a merchant of secrets.

"They all had the same tattoo their wrist."

"A tattoo on their wrist you say? What did the tattoo look like?" The Dark Elf stared at him unblinking, his thumb stroking his white beard thoughtfully.

Brathios reached beneath his dusty brown cloak and retrieved a sketch of the tattoo he had drawn and handed it to the information broker.

How could he forget it? He dreamt of their faces every night as he killed them over and over in his dreams.

"Ah, yes, I know this symbol. It belongs to a band of sellswords from Corone, they have a base of operations here. I believe they call themselves The Brotherhood of Thix."

"Where can I find them?"

"Quid pro quo. First you must tell me something."

The Andvall gave the short Dark Elf an icy glare, but answered his question nonetheless.

"Excellent. That's quite...interesting. You can find them here." He drew a spot on a map of the city with a quill after dabbing it into a pot of ink and handed it to Brathios.

Brathios smiled, tucking the map beneath his cloak. "I'm sorry about this Skarvano. You should have been a bit less bold and asked me any other question." The Dark Elf looked at him perplexed as the Andvall Nobleman stood to his full height of 6'9" and towered over the pint-sized Elf.

"Guards come quickly!" The Dark Elf had shot out of his chair as Briathos threw aside the desk and lunged forward, his hand and fingers morphing into a fist of metal that plunged from underneath his cloak and punched through the Dark Elf's kidney. He lifted the Dark Elf high into the air, staring into his big, bug-like eyes, staring as the man's life departed him, and then motioned his hand to the right to throw the man's limp body from his ensanguined fist, steel talons dripping with blood.

Some secrets weren't meant to be told.

The guards arrived to find their dead employer slumped against a bookshelf in a pool of blood, crimson footprints lead away from his body to an open window. They looked out from the third floor and saw another set of bloody footprints that disappeared at the tenth step heading back into the city.

[Penance]

Brathios stood at an unarmked grave, flowers in hand, staring down at the small stone that was the only thing left to remember a woman that had charmed him instantly with her beauty. She was from Corone. Nobody here knows her name. Nobody could share her fate with her family. She died here alone and forgotten...but he remembered. She died trying to protect him when they had only just met. If nothing else, he owed her vengeance.

Throwing the flowers down in front of her grave, he turned to leave but noticed a handsome, long-haired Dark Elf leaning against a tree, observing him silently.

"Who are you?"

The man said nothing, instead he replied with the sound of steel sliding against leather as he drew a blade in one hand and yanked loose a flintlock pistol in the other.

Brathios threw aside his cloak and drew his own sword, his huge figure streaking across the grassy terrain towards the man.

The elf emptied his first shot into Brathios' stomach, scarcely missing his organs.

He threw down his flintlock pistol and attempted to draw another but Brathios was already upon him, spittle flying from his mouth into the Dark Elf's face as their swords clanged together, sparks erupting from the collision of steel.

"Die Elf!" The Elf recoiled backwards, wisely choosing not to match his strength against Brathios'. He stalked languidly in a circle around Brathios who shifted to face the man every time he took a step...the elf didn't dare reach for another flintlock pistol, knowing such an attempt would cost him his life.

Brathios' pushed aside the pain of the bullet that was lodged inside his stomach, feeling his body rejecting its presence even now as his body healed itself, pushing it slowly out as tissue stitched back together. Gathering his strength for another attack he leaped forward, landing a few feet from the elf that whirled his blade about for Brathios' weaponless arm. Brathios' took the hit, feeling the Dark Elf's poisoned blade bite into his flesh, immediately replying with his own sword plunging through the man's throat - killing him where he stood.


Brathios fell to the ground, coughing blood, both his arm and stomach bleeding heavily. He managed to crawl back to the main road that led to the city before everything faded to black.

[Penance]

He awoke to the song of birds, lying naked in a bed, drenched in a cold sweat that soaked the bloody bandages wrapped around his arm and stomach. There was a huge window to his right, a cool breeze streaming through the swaying curtains as the sun shone brightly against his face. He averted his eyes from the sunlight and scanned the room. It was small, but clean and sanitary. A hospital, he realized.

He stood up and moved towards the door but it opened before he could reach it. A woman appeared in the doorway, carrying fresh bandages and a bowl of water which fell from her hands and clattered on the floor. Blushing, she immediately looked down, crouching to pick up the things she dropped and cleaning the spill. "I'm so sorry! My name is Mirandiel," she said, trying to hide her embarassment and not stare at his parts. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been shot, had my arm damn near cut off, and was poisoned to boot."

"You were poisoned?!"

He smiled. He assumed they had given him an antidote for whatever poison was on the elf's blade...but it appeared his regeneration did more than just heal his injuries.

"No. Nevermind."

"Oh...well...all right. If your injuries have healed enough we can give you back your clothes and let you leave."

"That would be splendid," he said, eyeing her curiously. She was around five-foot-three and quite beautiful. He usually didn't find Dark Elves attractive, but something about her seemed different. "Are you half human?"

"Yes," she blushed. "My mother was a human. How could you tell?"

He shrugged. "Just a hunch. So how did I get here?"

"A merchant traveling to the city found you on the side of the road. If you have a seat I'll take a look at your wounds."

Nodding, he sat down on the bed and watched as she slowly undid the bandages and inspected his chest and arms. "They're...almost healed." She didn't do a very good job at hiding her surprise.

"Good. Am I fit to leave?"

"Yes, but it might be best you to stay until you're fully recovered."

"I appreciate the offer but I can't. I have things to do." Standing up, he headed towards the door, before turning back and smiling. "Could you get my clothes for me?"

"Yes, right away." She shared his smile and exited down a hallway.

A few minutes later she returned with a bundle of clothes in her arms that she handed to him, noticing the look he got on his face when he inspected his things. "The guard at the entrance will give you your sword. This is a place of healing, no weapons are permitted."

He nodded. It was a good enough answer. He slid his clothes on piece by piece then thanked her and left. The guard at the reception area returned his sword without any fuss.

He removed the map that Skarvano had given him from his cloak and clenched it in his fist.

Time to pay the Brotherhood of Thix a visit.

[Penance]

There had only been three. The first he dispatched was a lookout standing in front of the door. Barathios killed him with a knife slash to the throat.

The second had been waiting inside, ineffecitvely ambushing Brathios the moment he entered. Brathios had been ready and caught his sword with his steel hand and impaled him through the bowels with the other, ripping out his entrails in a massive shower of gore that drained most of his blood in a single blow.

The third was in the cellar, sleeping on a straw mattress, and he woke to a steel hand wrapped around his throat suffocating him, dying seconds later of asphyxiation.

Only three...he thought there would have been more. Killing them hadn't sated his apetite for revenge as he hoped it might. There was no closure. The black void inside him hadn't been filled, he was left agitated and unsatisfied. Three, plus the one at the grave, and the three in the bar...that made seven all together. Such an odd number.

The Brotherhood of Thix's presence here was just a small cell. A tiny branch of a much larger Coronian organization. He wanted them wiped off the face of the earth, and he knew the only way to do that was to destroy its heart in Corone.

---

Three months later.

---

He had finally finished modifying the artifact creature. The Alerian Harvester was no longer a farming automaton, it was redesigned as a brutally efficient killing machine. It had a bug-like head and overall shape to its limbs, a humanoid body, two arms that curved into vibrating razor-sharp scythes that could sheath themselves when not in use, resharpening themselves everytime they came out. Rotating saw-blades could protrude from their chest to chop up anything that managed to get past their arms. They were capable of effortlessly climbing any terrain, nothing was too hazardous: neither walls nor mountains. They were the perfect weapons.

He sent a copy of the plans to his friend in Nauplez, requesting two-hundred of them be built within two winters and be sent by ship to the coordinates he requested upon their completion. He sent another copy to his brother in Harvset. The original he would keep with him in case the two copies he sent got lost.

Briathos smiled, inhaling the scent of the ocean and the ratty smell that lingered through the harbor, the ebb and flow of people coming and going was constant as ships docked and left port, dropping off or picking up passengers and goods. The ship he was waiting for had just made port in the harbor, and he carried a bag of his things over his shoulder as he made his way up the plank of the boat and onto its deck. Corone... Here there had only been seven Brothers of The Brotherhood of Thix. In Corone there would be many, many more. Corone was where the organization was founded and where their main headquarters was located. There had be over one-hundred of them if not more. They had the resources to set up a fledgeling branch in Alerer, so far away from them, and they were doing well enough in Corone to afford to expand globally.

Brathios realized he would need a small army.

A mercenary army.

In Corone he would recruit those worthy of fighting by his side, but they needed a name... All good mercenary companies had a memorable name.

He thought of the Coronian woman's dark hair and fiery personality and the name came to him: The Dark Suns.

---

Brathios had been too absorbed in his thoughts to realize that a gruff old man in a dark-brown tunic had followed him to the docks, the tunic's long sleeves hid the black tattoo on his wrist that was scarcely visisble unless one was looking for it. The man followed one of the ship's crewmates as he ventured to a whorehouse to spend his money, and when the man ducked down an alleyway the tattooed man descended upon him with a thin but strong wire, wrapping it around his throat and choking the life out of him. Stripping the sailor naked and dressing in his clothes, he dragged the body into a pile of trash, and made his way quietly back to the ship.

[Dissinger]

Thread – Travels
Music – Disintegrate – Gravity Kills

So Penance, first and foremost I have to apologize but I’m unable to fulfill your request and give you a judgment with full rubric full commentary. The reason is that a thread that gets graded on any of our rubrics requires that you reach a minimum of ten posts or 10,000 words. While you have fallen short on the requirements, I will however give you feedback exp and gold for this thread. Don’t worry I’ll be giving you advice on how to improve within our system.

First and foremost, I come to find your writing style is very Spartan and abrupt. That isn’t a bad thing per se, but it does make things choppy if the narrative doesn’t have the explanation to follow with the action going on. The invitation to the Tavern, the fight with the goons, and even the mysterious place called Andvall all gave me a feeling of nothing being explained. The problem is not that you didn’t give me the answers up front, but that I got no feeling for the scene going on. You have the ability to go in depth on a character; the raven haired beauty is a clear depiction of this. I got a good feeling for her, even as the others were being torn apart by your character.

My problem is that there are these huge jumps, these gaping holes where you go from one place to the next with this abruptness that I don’t get closure on the scene before. Wrapping up the scene requires more than a nod to what’s going on next, I got no sense of closure for the beauty other than “Damnit she’s dead, time to get vengeance for her unwarranted death.”

I’m also surprised that if your character had time to find the note and the tattoos he didn’t give the woman the same treatment. I would wonder who she is and try to find anything to identify her in her gear, if only to send her personal belongings back to her family. It was a glaring hole that became more so when you talked about no one knowing the girl. As a short little romp this thread does much in the ways of giving me something to grasp, but my problems with that concept, is that I don’t get to finish looking at what you’re showing me before you’re shoving the next scene at me. I feel like this is a commercial reel for a larger movie.

Slow down, take your time, and go through your head what’s going on. You are a meta human, what does that mean, what does that entail? Can you breed? Is there a reason to be so enamored to the girl, or is this some kind of weird robot experiment with mortal courting rituals? I got no feeling for any of the norms for your character, and you dropped the names of things in the thread with no explanation beyond what was important to the acts. I would have liked to see a response form the brother warning you to not overdo something and go charging headlong into the fray or a word of advice from your associate that can produce these incredible warmachines so quickly.

I’ll give you that to think about for now. You can as always reach me on Aim SethDahlios or VIA PM on this account for any further advice or discussion of what I’ve brought forth here.

Penance gains 200 EXP and 100 gold!

[Revenant]

EXP/GP added.