Lore of Leyuna RPG (FRPG)

[C S]

The armored being bowed his helm to all present and turned around. He opened the door and stepped out of the small office, leaving it ajar for the others to make their own rounds. Viho heard an unspoken comment from Johnny while he was getting his coat. "That's a claim to fame this place has now. Weather that drove a suit of armor to wear clothes." Everyone had their special outerwear.

The detective slung his long green sleeves over his shoulder, the length of the coat falling well past his knees. Gone were the streaks and stains of red, thanks to Kenneth. "Excellent timing with all of this, I've got to mention," the man began, swinging an arm around to swipe the deerstalker hat from the bookshelf and setting it on his head, "if you hadn't shown up, my next lead would've been the girl. If she isn't already awake, that could have been a long wait."

[Hopeflower]

Viho hummed, a mostly neutral sound. "Yes. Time that I'm not willing to spend waiting to hear about the next victim." If not for the fear that it would be another of his students, then because this had already gone on for too long. He had the ability to help, and so he had to try. Crippled or not.

[C S]

Johnathon made an equally neutral sound. As convoluted and nonsensical as magic was, he had no qualms about the help. Pride had no place in striving to save lives, and end injustice.

[The Kingpin]

"Then let's make this quick," was Andruil's only input on the matter. He had arrived here for a reason. Coincidence or fate, that was something that it was not his place to decide. All he knew was that there were individuals that he would need to bring a sudden and decisive end to. Time would tell if that required him to actually kill them, or whether he would be able to drag them to the prison to face a more... formal sentencing.

[C S]

Seeing as everyone was in consensus about wasting as little time as possible, Johnathon took the two out of his office, shut the door and then started towards another door even more out of the way than his. It was so nondescript that it was framed by semicircular columns, decorative ridges in the wall meant to keep it out of sight from most angles. The way to open it was also extraordinary, requiring Johnathon to insert the length of his forearm into a slot. His fingertips tripped the locking mechanisms out of sight by performing a gesture he had to memorize in his early days assigned to the precinct. That meant there were many days as a rookie where he had to defer to someone else to open the door to the holding cell for him.

The gesture manipulated the mechanisms with the same skill as a pianist, and the sweet song the lock made was that of sliders moving along their rails, blocks of metal thunking into their cavities. Johnathon rotated his elbow, the slot moved with it like an oversize keyhole, which it technically was, and the secure door opened freely on its hinges.

"It will be dark," Johnathon said to the others as he stepped into the descending corridor. He stopped a few feet in to press in a slab in the stonework, moving it aside to reveal a supply cabinet of a kind. The detective retrieved a handheld lantern and a torch. He lit the lantern with the striker that was included in the cabinet, set it on the ground and closed up the compartment. He picked it back up around the same time as the glow of another reached him from farther down the passage.

"Another session with the prisoner?" asked one of the keepers. Like most others in the building, their clothing was completely ordinary, and the firelight gave the man the impression that he could be working a farm. He already tended to those he considered pigs.

"A more substantial one, hoping. Andruil, Viho. Martin."

"Well met," said Martin, and then he opened up the cabinet in the wall to put away his lantern. "She's been given her food. Tell me if she actually eats it. She doesn't seem to like the dark."

Johnathon grunted. Being left alone in an unfamiliar cage for hours on end after the crystal loses its charge... he couldn't imagine many people liking that kind of complete darkness. No windows. No lights outside of the door. Complete sensory deprivation. But that was why he had the torch. The light was liable to annoy Natalie after Martin left her, but Johnathon felt some show of compassion, some care for her as a person, would make the woman more likely to give more crucial details about the kind of threat her gang posed to the people of Brodudika.

Martin was gone just as quickly as he appeared, so routine was his job. Whenever a prisoner was brought in for questioning, he gave them a glimpse of light, their meal, and then left them to sort themselves out, however they would. Left them to reflect on how they wouldn't be in such a state if they hadn't stepped out of bounds. The complex door was closed behind him, leaving the lantern as the sole light for the others to find their way, figuratively. Lantern or no, it was still a straight walk to the cell and back.

[The Kingpin]

An inhuman glimmer was visible in the Knight's eyes, not unlike that of a nocturnal predator's gaze, the reflections dancing with the light of the lantern. "Reminds me of the solitary holding cells in the Crestvale Bastille," he commented, taking note of the musty air and the old stone walls. "But then, I suppose that's to be expected. This place and that were built for a similar purpose; holding the most deplorable of their respective nation's criminals," he mused.

[C S]

"This place is no prison-fortress. This is how the Draxonians treated any street urchin with the foul luck to fall into the hands of the law. 'Law'," was all Johnathon had to say about that.

[The Kingpin]

One could almost hear the surprise in Andruil's silence. "I had heard Draxons idea of justice was... excessive, but you'd think they would be a bit more economical. Puts the collapse of the kingdom into a new context," he stated.

[C S]

"The cage at the end of the hall can seat more than one, at the very least. Even if its not really meant to." Thus was the level of inhumane brutality. Torture as consequence.

[Hopeflower]

Viho made a quiet, disgusted sound in the back of his throat, but said nothing. He could picture it - more than one unfortunate soul, scared and crammed into a space too small for them. Denied sunlight and the right to be treated as people. Their fear and suffering almost lingered, as though it had seeped into the very walls.

For all that the place left a bad taste in his mouth, however, he couldn't think of a more fitting hole to throw Dahnae's attacker in. This would make things...easier.

[The Kingpin]

"I don't want to even think about the number of 'inmates' that were killed by their cellmates here, much less those killed by their jailers," stated the Knight lowly. The darkest, dankest depths of the Crestvale Bastille had one thing this place did not, and that was space. But then, when designing a prison in the capital city, one had to take into account the volume of occupants. At least in Valenhad such conditions were restricted to isolated confinement. The authorities back home took care not to risk ending the lives of their prisoners too early.

[C S]

"Things are better now for the ones who don't try to carve up their fellow citizens. This is the safest option we have for Natalie, until more cells are built up top."

"Safest", much like the door, meant measures that seemed ridiculously over the top, given what they were dealing with. The lantern's light fell upon another metal door. This one did not need a complicated gesture to open. Johnathon pushed it open and the lantern's light spilled into the room. He walked in and the fire revealed the cloaked woman pouring her meal into her mouth.

She was huddled over the tray on the ground in front of her. The bowl she wasn't holding was filled with water. Natalie moved the bowl away from her lips, patches of porridge on her face. "You people are sick. This is how you make people go blind," she spat.

"I won't let that happen," Johnathon said. He moved to the table where her things were, opened the glass frame of the lantern and stuck the end of the torch inside to light it. He then closed the lantern and slipped the torch into a sconce on the wall. "Better, miss Gardener?"

Natalie snorted, then went back to scarfing down the porridge.

[Hopeflower]

"Where I was born," Viho remarked conversationally as he stepped into the room, "losing your eyes was considered getting off lightly, when murder was involved." The psychomancer stood quietly sizing up the woman, taking in what evidence he could see of her struggle with Dahnae. He would have to let her know he was proud of her for putting up such a fight, when she woke up.

[The Kingpin]

"Were we in Valenhad, you would probably have been thrown in the quarries... Left to work until you died of the exertion, the thirst, the festering of the kinds of wounds you bear... or until the day of your hanging. Whichever came first," added Andruil a couple of moments later. "Fortunately for you, you are in the captivity of kinder people." Not that Viho's undoubted wrath would be in any way pleasant. It was something he was genuinely curious to see. Memories of the horrors that could be inflicted by a Psychomancer came back to him, as described by Arsenic that day they had begun their training. The breaking of one's mind, the sheer damage of the action, the fate of those at the Psychomancer's mercy. It was something chilling, and yet, something he considered deserved for those guilty of taking, or trying to take a life.

[C S]

Natalie put her bowl down on her tray after she was through eating. She wiped any residue on her lips away on the sleeve of her cloak and sat back casually. "Dramatic," she said flatly, unenthused. The reflection of orange in the knight's eyes told her much. "Just as He described you."

"Who described whom, now?" Johnathon turned to Andruil while Natalie pulled her fingers across her mouth, as if to zip it shut.

[Hopeflower]

"None of that." The air around Viho thickened, tinted with suppressed rage. He tasted it on the back of his tongue as he folded his arms, reached out with his mind, and pushed. He was rougher than he had to be, admittedly - he was no doubt causing Natalie some discomfort, considering the lack of resistance he found. "Consider this me asking nicely. Answer his questions," he ordered, and everything in his voice and will demanded obedience.

[The Kingpin]

"You heard the man. Who described me?" he inquired. Now he really did wish he had gotten the full briefing on what they knew. Still, they would find out in a moment anyway. Whether Natalie liked it or not.

[C S]

Johnathon watched with bemusement as Natalie broke out into uproarious laughter that echoed in the room. "For some reason I don't think you told her a joke," the detective stated. "She did say she was looking forward to abuse. Physical or otherwise, it turns out."

"So blind. Unless I've been mistaken?" Natalie said to herself. She pressed a hand against her chest as if she had done something in bad taste, which she arguably did to have landed herself in the cell. "Oh no, I don't think I am. But you don't know a thing!"

"Andruil, does the term 'Snake' mean anything to you?" Johnathon asked. Maybe with the right angle, Viho could get around the lunacy of Gardener's mind.

[The Kingpin]

The Knight's expression was blank with disbelief. "Xilo," he all but hissed, the word dripping with the venomous loathing the Knight had for him. "Xilo the trinket thief. The most irredeemably vile lizard of a man I have ever met. His love for chaos and discord was such that you'd think they were the greatest pleasures in life. He was one of Valenhad's most wanted criminals. Before then, he was a companion of mine for a couple of weeks, until I saw just how terrible he actually was. Unfortunately, after I turned my blade on him he disappeared, slippery ******* that he is. One of Daaven's agents with a personal grudge against him managed to track him down and finish him. She informed me of her success afterwards," he explained.

His hand raised as he squeezed the bridge of his nose, frustrated that he still was not rid of the damned reptile.

"Even in death he is a pest. How did such a disgusting man gain a following?" he all but snarled through gritted teeth.

[Hopeflower]

Oh, hell. Viho gave himself all of five seconds to hope that he was wrong. With such a description as "lizard of a man", however, it left him quite sure there were few people that would match it.

"Show people you get things done, and they follow," Viho said, his attention never leaving Natalie. "He and I crossed paths, once. The man could talk, and to certain kinds of people, his views would make sense."

He'd found one approach that wouldn't work. Like any good researcher, Viho immediately clicked over to the next, paying his failure little mind and giving most of his focus to the puzzle in front of him. So this was going to take either a more delicate touch, or ripping everything straight out of her. Much as it would have been satisfying to try the latter right off the bat, it was a last resort, as to do so would do damage he couldn't repair. To Natalie, it felt like he let go of her entirely, but he set to picking his way through her thoughts instead, reading her responses to what they were saying.