Recruiting a Terrible Thing

[Storm Veritas]

((Closed to invitees only.))

A man’s lot in life is his choosing, but changing directions is often much tougher than he’d like to believe.

Storm Veritas had come to Alerar to start fresh. Away from Corone, away from Radasanth. To be free from himself, the history that followed him. The Serenti championship, the battles at the Theater, and so many more hard fought defeats all played second fiddle to a notorious reputation. He was a bad one, they said, and he felt it burn when mothers whispered to their children that he was a monster to be avoided. While it stung, it was irrefutable; he had done many things that no one could be proud of, toeing the line of hedonism and outright evil for many years.

He wanted a change.

Alerar, however, would be no different. His reputation actually preceded him. He hadn’t spent three nights casually cavorting at the tavern in El’innsring before his pockets were filled with blood money, where he had killed an elf and several guards for little more than chump change. Worse yet, he had taught the dark art of death to a promising lad, seeing the gleam in the eye of opportunity on the boy that he had once held himself. That innocence, once lost, had been impossible to retake.

He could never go back, and he knew it.

Another day, another crossroads. He had woken to a warm meal, dressed and moved to Ankhas for another long day. He wished to be a bright man, a more intellectual type. The histories of these elven people fascinated him. Sitting at a long, polished teakwood table, he was surrounded by dozens of towering bookshelves. The seemingly endless tombs were daunting, but these hung-over mornings were terrific opportunities to begin filling the pockets of his mind with knowledge.

He couldn’t help but laugh at it all. A younger self would never, ever have complicated so much work without a well documented reward. Knowing not what he was looking for, he merely read and read here, the steady lamplights about him beating down a consistent golden hue upon the pages. They smelled of aged leather and lacquer, and gave him a certain satisfaction to immerse within. After nearly two weeks of this study, however, he had become quite tired of the effort.

So much here… Just too goddamned much. What am I hoping to find? How am I going to use this?

It was then that he was approached. A hollow set of footbeats echoed through the stacks, very distinguishable by the irregular rhythm of a three legged man. It was an older gentleman, a human, walking with a small staff that vanished within a large, wrinkled white hand. With a short-cropped beard of white that dominated his jaw, he slowly approached the table that Veritas studied at, resting his left palm flat on the wood.

“Can I help you, Father Time?” Storm, through his frustration, chastised himself at the curt remark. It was automatic to him, and he needed an “off” switch.

“Hah! Well, I see I’ve come to the right place. They told me you were an asshole.” The response from the old timer was fast and simple, far more energetic and enthusiastic than the ornery mage had expected.

“The name is Gideon. I’ve come to talk business, and have a hell of a proposition for you.” He smiled, slightly stained teeth charming behind his beard. His eyes were a bright blue that looked faded with time. In his day, Storm figured the stranger would probably pick up nearly as many women as he had.

“You are sitting, that’s good. The others are coming, they’ve all been invited. I want you all here before I start. You can go back to reading until they get here.”

Perplexed, Storm stared down the bizarre gentleman. He didn’t know precisely what his story was, but he had to admit that he was interested. He was always interested in business, although he had no clue who these “others” were.

He’d find out soon enough.

[Cyrus the virus]

Luc's life was a whim. He flew where he wanted, as swift as the wind and every bit as free. The mage would often soar below the clouds and simply go nowhere, led by nothing but the invisible force in all men that tugged at his spirit.

It had been some time since he last landed, at least six hours, but for whatever reason he still felt vitalized. Any drink or food he wanted was conjured in seconds, and the wind carried him easily. Before long he was above a mountainous land he only faintly recognized. He fell down through the air and slowed just before landing, finding himself in a dark forest.

He could feel the workings of magic all around him. The ground was fertile with soil richer than any he could recall, overloading his magical sense as if he could taste it. An audible tap was growing louder and louder, until finally he turned around and saw an old man with a cane under a withered hand.

"Stranger in a new land, eh? That's good. The young need to travel, you know, learn the world around them."

He was swift for an elderly dullard, but Luc couldn't hide the frustration on his face. Something about being called young pissed him off, though there was really no sensible reason for him to be annoyed.

"It's not my first time here," he responded, overcoming his anger. "Nor will it be my last."

"Ankhas?" the old man asked, and it caught Luc off guard. "You look like a knowledge-hungry guy. Why don't you meet up with me there in an hour or so?"

Luc nodded slowly, and the man grinned, turning and making his way through the forest once more. In an hour, Luc would walk into the great library and see a man he didn't expect to see.

[Slayer of the Rot]

"Well, there's no mistaking this one."

The slayer's loping stride faltered for a moment, unable to shake the sudden suspicion that the remark was aimed at him, especially after no more than a thought later, a cane tapped him on the shoulder. Shifting his weight, slamming his knee down on the cobblestone street, he twisted, seized the offending object, and glowered up at the man holding the other end. "Oh, you can have it," the genteel elder said, smiling through neatly trimmed beard that reminded him briefly of nearly forgot Salvarian snows. "After all, with that posture, you'll need it in less than a decade."

The man (if still he could be called one) named Dan Lagh'ratham offered nothing but a grunt in response, and released the shaft of the cane, which the old man tapped against the street with show. Growling lightly, he rose up, standing nearly straight for the first time in months, the crown of his dark brown hair and edge of the tall collar of his coat, peeking up over many of the heads of the crowd. His left hand held a bunching of hemp rope; which in turn held fast two long, slender burlap wrapped bundles, a loop bound around the neck of both. The head of whoever was beneath had stopped moving quite a while ago. When the older man offered no immediate response, he leaned down and picked up his other burden, which he'd dropped at the touch of the cane. This was a large sack which held a great volume of something that had stained the bottom a dark, rusty brown. A length of rope wound itself around the mouth of the sack, holding it fast, from which dangled three circular sacks, about the size of human heads.

They'd been bounties wanted in Fallien and Alerar for crimes he remembered less than their names. He'd have turned them over to his surrogate, arid home, but Alerar was promising more money if they were all brought in at once. "What is it that you want? I've other business to attend to, old man, and holding up my schedule is most unwise."

"And who exactly is to keep you from any schedule you may have set? Out of the many people in this world, you are the most at liberty to live as you wish." When the eyes that stared down at him from above the swaddle of bandages did not change, the man cleared his throat, fixing the tie at his collar. "Why don't you meet me at Ankhas in about an hour or so? I have --"

"I don't care for books," Dan interjected rudely, a statement in stark contrast to his vocabulary that was in evident bloom, when compared to any statement uttered a decade ago. "It is not books I wish to discuss," the man continued, taking the interruption in stride, barely flinching away from the man that could turn him into a mere red smear as his eyes flared. " 'Tis money, more so, the acquisition of it."

Beneath his makeshift mask, Dan smiled. 'Money.' He'd begun to create a little horde of it in his cave-home, along with all the books and trinkets he'd taken from caravans he'd personally destroyed. Dan shrugged his shoulders, shifting the weight of his bounties. "Very well. I'll meet you at this nation's pinnacle of knowledge later in the day."

[Storm Veritas]

He wasn’t sitting for long before he heard the door lurch in front of him. The large, oaken door swung on screaming metal hinges, squealing loudly as the cathedral shaped gateway to the sunshine outside swung apart. The figure at the doorway was absolutely unmistakable, with a short statured man sporting an absurd cape around his shoulders. That, combined with his cheaply frocked hair, could only be one man.

Luc, that squirrelly prick…

The geomancer was wild an unpredictable, a sour mage who acted perhaps even more impulsively than Storm. This was of course hard to fathom, but hedonism was a fashionable and attractive pursuit. Kraus was different. Instead of the hedonistic endeavors that Veritas sought – simple violence, chasing women, and general overindulgence – Luc Kraus was a power monger. Storm had met many in his day, but none so lethal and unequivocally dangerous as this one.

The short man held a wicked grin as he entered, sauntering up to the table without more than a passive glance. They had crossed paths before, where the smaller one had nearly killed Storm. His sadistic nature was so unforgiving, so unyielding. With a quick thought, Veritas realized he had possibly never come across a blacker soul.

At this point, as Luc had began to settle, quietly positioning himself with a nod to the old man, the door swung open a second time. This one was big, a man whom Storm had heard of but never met. Dan was his name, with a last name he never bothered to pronounce. A monster of a human.

Perhaps we all are…

His mind fluttered as he watched the mountainous bully approach the table. All of them were notorious about the land, there was certainly no coincidence that they were called here together. Accidents like this simply don’t happen.

A young, tea-totaling teenager skipped up towards Dan, a boy in hero worship, extending a notepad and pen, as though requesting an autograph. With a swift stiff-arm, Dan pressed the pad back into the lad’s face, crumbling the boy with a combination of confusion and horror. As the frail young man fell to his backside, a wicked grin snaked across the face of Lagh’ratham.

Nope, no accident.

Without a word, Storm eyed the newcomer as he stood by the tableside. Across from the suspicious old man, Storm Veritas, Luc Kraus, and Dan Lagh’ratham all remained poised and relaxed. Feeling his way about a bit, Storm produced a cigarette from his pocket and flicked it to life with a blue tendril from his thumb. He would need to keep his nerves cool around these animals.

“Gentlemen…” the elder began, smiling with teeth that were coffee stained and crooked. “Glad you could all join me. We have a simple task at hand, something that requires brute force and perhaps a certain… disconnect from the rules of polite society. You men have all come very highly recommended.”

Storm leaned across the table now with his left arm, staring deep into the eyes of the recruiter. This was bizarre.

“The pay is fantastic, and you will be part of a movement that will change the world forever. You will make all of Althanas a cleaner, purer place.”

While “clean” and “pure” were hardly ideals that Storm sought after with any real longing, the notice of high pay had certainly piqued his interest. He would listen to the old fool babble on as long as he liked.

[Raelyse]

An unusual sight greeted those who delved into a deeper section of Ankhas library this day. While every possible subject imaginable existed in a book shelf in this great library, there seemed to be an extreme shortage in one particular shelf. It was a section that was known about but few people accessed it because it was not really a section of interest. It was not that no one knew about this subject, it was because they were afraid of it. They knew that if they ever saw what the books depicted, they would much sooner run than remember anything that they had read. Not so for one particularly inquisitive soul.

Layers and layers of books lay on the ground just inside the aisle and more than a few librarians had told the persecutor to place the books back when he was finished with them. Ignoring them, the silver haired man simply took book and book off the shelf, glanced at the index and maybe a few pictures before throwing it to the ground.

Who was this man? What was he so interested in?

The former question was easy because as soon as he threw back that long silver hair from his studious face and flashed that confident smirk, it was obvious that it was the renowned Prince Raelyse Salidan of Myrusia. Rumors had circulated Alerar that he had now secured a base for himself somewhere in this grand continent. People knew about this gossip but few decided to pursue it because for every rumor of a Myrusian empire, there were three more about the prince's short temper and long magic repertoire.

This day, he had visited Ankhas in hopes of finding information on his latest fleeting interest, the illithids. The prince had heard that his drow underlings in the Grander's Orders had found one within their caverns and while the dark ones could not wait to slit its throat and devour its brain, the prince of Myrusia had better ideas. He had only heard of the race's abilities but the little that he knew gave him enough hope that it would make a formidable ally.

He had been here for a few hours when a few whispers of activity rang through his ears. When they became louder and more substantial, the busy body prince decided to find out what all the rumbling was about. Throwing the latest book to the ground, he peeked from around the book shelf. What he saw astounded and shocked him and he quickly composed himself and stepped from behind the shelf and made his way towards the small congregation of 'heroes' gathered slightly ahead. His keen ears had eavesdropped on the last few words of the conversation.

Even among this relatively illustrious company, he saw no reason for courtesy and interjected before anyone knew about his presence, though they would surely now.

"Fantastic pay? Cleansing of Althanas? Music to my ears. It surprises me that you did not think to invite the prince of Myrusia, but surely you now realize how much simpler your task has become..."