Real Time Strategy - Arkadius Hogg - 09/06/2020
Jun 10, 2020 19:56:52 GMT
Ian (Menace), Jamie J, and 2 more like this
Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2020 19:56:52 GMT
The barkeep had recoiled from the counter when Arkadius had lowered his voice, and growled. “All I want… Is information and a bottle of Fire Whiskey. Is that really too much to ask for?” He was losing control of his emotions more often lately, his fists balled up and slamming hard onto the counter between them. He caught himself a moment too late, his fists meeting the counter with a loud bang which rang around the room.
The room fell silent for a moment, all eyes on him, when a familiar voice swam into his head, taking advantage of the silence. Tut tut, Mr. Hogg, this is not how grown men conduct themselves, is it? Seems like you’ve still got a way to go... Arkadius turned swiftly on his heels to face the room behind him, but he didn’t spot the figure he was looking for. The corners of his eyes twitched with mild anger, and he turned back to the counter. Good instincts, keeping an eye on your own back, you cannot trust anybody else to do it for you. But… Well, I’m not really in the room, am I now? You know exactly where I would be, if you wanted to find me.
Again, he turned as quickly as possible, scanning the room again, this time yelling at the room loudly. “Shut up! Shutup, shutup, shutup… shut up!” He scanned the faces in the room, all staring at him, eyes wide and various mouths hanging open in surprise. Arkadius blinked twice, and darted for the exit, blending in with the crowd outside.
I’m always here, Arkadius. I always have been, and I always will be, and no amount of running away will leave me behind. Arkadius spotted the figure he had been looking for in the bar, stepping out of an alleyway beside him. She smiled at him sweetly, waving a hand in the direction of the alleyway. Now, are we going to finally discuss this rather-imminently-pressing Vanguard issue like adults, preferably without you storming off like a child, or are you going to act like the petulant child you were when you left my realm and have yet another temper tantrum?
Arkadius had travelled alongside Sheryl to Daring Heights. He’d bid farewell to his staff at FfirstMail and FfirstTravel, who had been won over by the promise of a few days off, while events transpired across the realm. They deserved time with their families, and Arkadius would not begrudge them this. Either they had very little time together anyway, or people would live to hold grudges that they were not well respected when things could have gone…
Arkadius caught himself considering eventualities that hadn’t transpired. He shook his head, and focused on the here and now. They had just stepped into the Ettin, and were standing between tables. It seemed a lot busier than normal, because everyone was being sent there. The Ettin was being used as a… holding pen for adventurers, before everything truly kicked off.
In an instant, a dwarven woman, with a solitary leaf stuck in her long, uncombed hair, stepped into the Ettin, looking around at everyone with a sense of wildness. Arkadius was unsettled by her appearance, even more so when she spotted them and started walking in their direction. “You all. With me. I need help,” was all she said, turning on her heels and walking straight back out again. Markas followed the dwarf straight out, and Sheryl took a quick glance up at Arkadius before starting to follow. Then, a voice from the crowd behind them stopped Sheryl in her tracks. “You’ve lost weight, my friend.”
It was a voice both recognised intimately and instantly, evidenced by Arkadius, in a blink, spinning around and enveloping the figure in a massive bear-hug. “Where have you been, my brother?” Arkadius asked, still holding Matthew in a tight hug. Sheryl followed up, “Matthew! It is such a pleasure to see you again!” Menace said something, and Taz followed, but Arkadius wasn’t concentrating on that. He still had Matthew in a hug.
When they stepped out of the Ettin, the group saw the dwarf waiting for them, the other side of the street. Watching for them, analysing their decision as to whether to follow or not. They seemed to meet her approval, as she smiled and said, “Good, good. I like it. I love it. Alright.” She pauses for a moment, before asking “Have I met any of your before?”
Arkadius shook his head, but remained quiet, letting the others answer. The dwarf introduced herself as Khazifa Onyxstep, grandmother to Daisy. He recalled the name from very early on in his time in Kantas, but put those thoughts to one side. Khazifa was talking about having a plan, and specifically asking about recent events. The others were filling in various gaps of events. Khazifa seemed pleased, replying “Aren’t you all a lot more than pretty faces… I need a few strong backs.” Khazifa stopped walking, looked at the group, and started walking again. “No. That’s not right, I need you lot. Perfect. Nailed it.”
Arkadius blinked, and shrugged to himself. Alright, so that’s not anything to be concerned about, he thought to himself.
The group arrived at the Hung Rabbit, walking right through the taproom, the bartender watching them pass without an order sullenly, and proceeded to a private room. Khazifa explained that she had a devil in a cage, a devil that she had caught a few hours ago. She opened the door, and indeed in the room was a 6ft iron-bar cage, with a demonic figure inside. Menace immediately stepped in, and began regarding the armour that the figure was wearing, which Arkadius noticed. He headed off any other direction the conversation could head by loudly exclaiming “So you mentioned you had a plan?”
This drew Khazifa’s attention, who explained that the portal in K’ul Goran hadn’t opened the moment the third seal (second, technically, given one still remains) was broken, which led her to believe that something else controlled the portal. She beckoned the rest of the group in, with a wry smile. “I can fit quite a few in this bed,” she said.
All Arkadius could say in response was “Wow.”
Khazifa continued with her thoughts, something the other end must control the portal, that Zariel must be using to her advantage. She controls when it opens and closes, and maybe just maybe if we had that information… we could use it to our advantage instead.
“The devil might know, and basically… you’re going into her head to find out.”
Arkadius gulped. He didn’t like the idea of exploring someone else’s head, let alone a devils. Sheryl explained that it was dangerous, that she did it to a baby once. This didn’t fill him with confidence. Menace asked the sensible question of an escape route, should things go wrong. Khazifa confirms plans for evacuation, if it became necessary, which Arkadius approved of. She gave them a possible route, as long as Sheryl cast Sending to notify her of the need.
She then pulled out a big bottle, containing a brown homebrew-like spirit liquid. Arkadius smirked ever so slightly as Khazifa admitted that the magic was in the homebrew spirits, before grinning wildly. “Now this is the kind of magic I can really get behind!” he said loudly, picking up a shot-glass with gusto. Khazifa then admitted that perhaps… brains were easier cleared when the intrusion wanted to leave, and that there would be other methods of escaping if they were so desired. “Now that fills me with a bit more confidence,” Arkadius responded, before quickly downing the shot in one.
Arkadius didn’t know whether it was mere seconds or hours, but it felt like an age had passed when he woke up. He tried flapping his wings, but they weren’t really working very well. They were… burrowing into sand as he flapped. He had some vestigial memory of falling into the ocean, but it passed as quickly as it had appeared, Arkadius refusing to believe that he’d fallen into the ocean given he and the rest of the troupe were entirely bone-dry. Regardless, he was awake and standing now, ready to face whatever the world could throw at him.
While he had been not paying attention following his brief encounter with not entirely coping with the royal purple wine-like ocean, the others had partially scouted out the path ahead. A one-hundred foot path with tall, rotating statues lay ahead of them, ending with a tall gate inset into a very tall iron wall. With more statues partially inset into alcoves within the wall at infrequent points. It didn’t take much to work out the statues were magical watchtowers, given they were rotating softly and their eyes were glowing somewhat. The others were talking about how to proceed, and Arkadius wasn’t paying attention. His attention was being distracted by the statues, a plan forming in his head.
“Okay,” he announced suddenly, quietly but loud enough for the group to hear. “Depending on how far the statues can see, and depending on how fast we can move… we’ve either got a path of six seconds, or a path of twelve. I have no doubt Markas can make it, everyone else… we have a tough choice to make.”
Markas, obviously, darted off without a second thought. The group watched him practically dance between the statues, nimble of foot as well as mind, Arkadius admired that about Markas. A few moments later, Markas returned, journal in hand. “Arkadius, I believe you can translate these runes for me? They’re likely Infernal.” Arkadius took one look at them before nodding, “That one on the left… the left-hand door you say, that’s ‘Eternal’. The one on the right, the right-hand door I assume? That’s ‘Vigilance’. ‘Eternal Vigilance’... that sounds prophetic. Does anybody recognise that?”
The conversation returned to getting past the statues, and Arkadius was a little bit irritated part-way through, when Menace asked about going through in a bubble of Darkness. Arkadius tutted, quickly responding “We might as well go rootin’ and tootin’ down the path with our lyre and harp…” The group started at Arkadius for a few moments, a look of confusion and derision on most of their faces, before a loud grating sound was heard behind them. One of the statues had stepped off their spot, and was looking at the floor… where Markas had recently stepped when he was darting back from the gate. The group watched the statue with interest, hope and trepidation, before watching it make its way back to it’s set position. The group acted swiftly, using the momentary disruption to the watchtower cycle. Sheryl and Markas made it to the gate quickly, given Markas’ general increased speed and Matthew casting Haste on Sheryl to help, the rest had to revert to sneaking in view of the statues, trying to keep out of their gaze. Thankfully, the group reunited at the gate.
“What next? Arkadius asked, looking up at the top of the wall. “How about… I run up, and you fly up there with me?” Markas asked. Arkadius nodded, and Matthew pulled out his magical rope, nodding too. From position atop the wall, they were able to see what was ahead of them, a city with confusing paths leading to a castle in the distance, five towers. The entire city and landscape was grey, featureless and colourless. But the five towers were distracting, colours of the rainbow. While Matthew helped the others up the wall that side, Markas hopped down into the city. Arkadius followed, diving down and controlling his speed with his wings. The pair had the opportunity to take a look while the others followed along. There was the tinkle of breaking glass in the distance, which distracted Arkadius, leading him to jump into the air again to give an aerial view of the city.
He watched a figure hopping to and fro, occasionally picking something up from a shelf lining the paths, smash something (which caused the glass breaking sound), and he landed to let the others know what was going on. He landed next to Mace, who was going to smash one of the figures from a shelf himself, and took the figure off him, Mace was not expecting him to appear. They resumed conversation, discussing next steps: head to the castle, or follow the figure. As they talked, the figure appeared down the street from them, and everyone acted. Markas bolting to strike unarmed, Sheryl holding back a spell in case of disaster, and Menace doing his usual thing and attacking from hiding spots.
The figure was nearly taken down, but they disappeared as swiftly as they arrived, and there was silence for a few moments… followed by more glass tinkling. The group were disappointed, resolved to getting to the tower and finding the information quickly. Arkadius flies up over the buildings, sending mental messages back to Sheryl to help her through the maze. As they approached the tower, they passed the dragonborn who was still breaking figures, muttering word like ‘greed’, ‘corruption’ and ‘envy’ as it did so.
The group proceeded into the tower itself, climbing a spiral staircase as they were chased by an ocean of blood. The team went through various methods of climbing the stairs, and inevitably reached the top. Slamming the door behind them, the group found another figure, a white dragonborn. They identified themselves as Voxis, Sheryl soft-talking them into submission. She says she saw her city besieged, but corruption from within took down her city. She turned to trying to expunge corruption from the city. Since death, she has been blessed to serve the Archduke of Hell eternally, and feels she has served well, but… asks the group to kill her so that she can no longer serve. Arkadius sighed, not wanting another death on his hands, his own death-count was… too high for him to consider good.
Voxis says that she has seen a lot inside the Hells. She says inside Zariel’s tower there is an area that no one can go to, that she knows there’s a great power inside that tower that is difficult to control, and that that’s where Zariel went just before the portal opened.
The group proceeded to attack and kill Voxis, as Arkadius looked for a way out. By pure force of thought, Arkadius spotted a door, and wrenched it open. As he stepped through, he returned to the room in the Hung Rabbit, with Khazifa. He was back in the real world, and everything was really getting bad.
The stone floor in the alley was uncomfortable, but there was no other option. Swan was standing across from him, leaning on the wall of the building. “Thank you for not trying to run. We both know that would be the hard option, and staying is the easy option. Easier, anyway.” She grinned, showing her teeth slightly. “What riled you up so badly this time?”
Arkadius’ fists balled up subconsciously, his eyes closing in anger. He breathed in and out hard for a few moments, before sighing, his hands relaxing. “The fate of the multiverse is in our hands, and people don’t seem to want to give up the simplest of luxuries to give just a little bit of help to save the world. They just fall back to their natural...”
“Leopards do not change their spots willingly, Arkadius. I thought you of all people would have learned that by now. You need to… entice them, or force them. You’ve travelled the world, witnessed how people treat you because you are a tiefling. I thought you would have learned that lesson the hard way.”
Arkadius let out a loud laugh at that statement. “I’ve known about racism against tieflings since I was a kid, back in Shadowfell, and it’s no better out here in the material plane. I’ve become used to it… mostly. It still hits me at times, and I react badly. Regulus Chuckhammer, for example… I think he learned the lesson that not all tieflings are the same. But why should I even consider other people changing when I am the way I am? I’m far from perfect.”
Swan stood up straight, and took a step towards the street outside of the alley. She stopped, and lowered her voice so Arkadius could barely hear her. “Perhaps Jornos was right. Perhaps you are not the Emissary I was looking for. Perhaps I should… cut you loose, and let you run wild in this world, while it remains. And then when I have ascended…” She stepped quickly out of the alley, and was gone in the blink of an eye, before Arkadius could even react.
”I’ll have no need of you, and you can join your dearly beloved husband,” the voice whispered directly into his ear.
The room fell silent for a moment, all eyes on him, when a familiar voice swam into his head, taking advantage of the silence. Tut tut, Mr. Hogg, this is not how grown men conduct themselves, is it? Seems like you’ve still got a way to go... Arkadius turned swiftly on his heels to face the room behind him, but he didn’t spot the figure he was looking for. The corners of his eyes twitched with mild anger, and he turned back to the counter. Good instincts, keeping an eye on your own back, you cannot trust anybody else to do it for you. But… Well, I’m not really in the room, am I now? You know exactly where I would be, if you wanted to find me.
Again, he turned as quickly as possible, scanning the room again, this time yelling at the room loudly. “Shut up! Shutup, shutup, shutup… shut up!” He scanned the faces in the room, all staring at him, eyes wide and various mouths hanging open in surprise. Arkadius blinked twice, and darted for the exit, blending in with the crowd outside.
I’m always here, Arkadius. I always have been, and I always will be, and no amount of running away will leave me behind. Arkadius spotted the figure he had been looking for in the bar, stepping out of an alleyway beside him. She smiled at him sweetly, waving a hand in the direction of the alleyway. Now, are we going to finally discuss this rather-imminently-pressing Vanguard issue like adults, preferably without you storming off like a child, or are you going to act like the petulant child you were when you left my realm and have yet another temper tantrum?
Arkadius had travelled alongside Sheryl to Daring Heights. He’d bid farewell to his staff at FfirstMail and FfirstTravel, who had been won over by the promise of a few days off, while events transpired across the realm. They deserved time with their families, and Arkadius would not begrudge them this. Either they had very little time together anyway, or people would live to hold grudges that they were not well respected when things could have gone…
Arkadius caught himself considering eventualities that hadn’t transpired. He shook his head, and focused on the here and now. They had just stepped into the Ettin, and were standing between tables. It seemed a lot busier than normal, because everyone was being sent there. The Ettin was being used as a… holding pen for adventurers, before everything truly kicked off.
In an instant, a dwarven woman, with a solitary leaf stuck in her long, uncombed hair, stepped into the Ettin, looking around at everyone with a sense of wildness. Arkadius was unsettled by her appearance, even more so when she spotted them and started walking in their direction. “You all. With me. I need help,” was all she said, turning on her heels and walking straight back out again. Markas followed the dwarf straight out, and Sheryl took a quick glance up at Arkadius before starting to follow. Then, a voice from the crowd behind them stopped Sheryl in her tracks. “You’ve lost weight, my friend.”
It was a voice both recognised intimately and instantly, evidenced by Arkadius, in a blink, spinning around and enveloping the figure in a massive bear-hug. “Where have you been, my brother?” Arkadius asked, still holding Matthew in a tight hug. Sheryl followed up, “Matthew! It is such a pleasure to see you again!” Menace said something, and Taz followed, but Arkadius wasn’t concentrating on that. He still had Matthew in a hug.
When they stepped out of the Ettin, the group saw the dwarf waiting for them, the other side of the street. Watching for them, analysing their decision as to whether to follow or not. They seemed to meet her approval, as she smiled and said, “Good, good. I like it. I love it. Alright.” She pauses for a moment, before asking “Have I met any of your before?”
Arkadius shook his head, but remained quiet, letting the others answer. The dwarf introduced herself as Khazifa Onyxstep, grandmother to Daisy. He recalled the name from very early on in his time in Kantas, but put those thoughts to one side. Khazifa was talking about having a plan, and specifically asking about recent events. The others were filling in various gaps of events. Khazifa seemed pleased, replying “Aren’t you all a lot more than pretty faces… I need a few strong backs.” Khazifa stopped walking, looked at the group, and started walking again. “No. That’s not right, I need you lot. Perfect. Nailed it.”
Arkadius blinked, and shrugged to himself. Alright, so that’s not anything to be concerned about, he thought to himself.
The group arrived at the Hung Rabbit, walking right through the taproom, the bartender watching them pass without an order sullenly, and proceeded to a private room. Khazifa explained that she had a devil in a cage, a devil that she had caught a few hours ago. She opened the door, and indeed in the room was a 6ft iron-bar cage, with a demonic figure inside. Menace immediately stepped in, and began regarding the armour that the figure was wearing, which Arkadius noticed. He headed off any other direction the conversation could head by loudly exclaiming “So you mentioned you had a plan?”
This drew Khazifa’s attention, who explained that the portal in K’ul Goran hadn’t opened the moment the third seal (second, technically, given one still remains) was broken, which led her to believe that something else controlled the portal. She beckoned the rest of the group in, with a wry smile. “I can fit quite a few in this bed,” she said.
All Arkadius could say in response was “Wow.”
Khazifa continued with her thoughts, something the other end must control the portal, that Zariel must be using to her advantage. She controls when it opens and closes, and maybe just maybe if we had that information… we could use it to our advantage instead.
“The devil might know, and basically… you’re going into her head to find out.”
Arkadius gulped. He didn’t like the idea of exploring someone else’s head, let alone a devils. Sheryl explained that it was dangerous, that she did it to a baby once. This didn’t fill him with confidence. Menace asked the sensible question of an escape route, should things go wrong. Khazifa confirms plans for evacuation, if it became necessary, which Arkadius approved of. She gave them a possible route, as long as Sheryl cast Sending to notify her of the need.
She then pulled out a big bottle, containing a brown homebrew-like spirit liquid. Arkadius smirked ever so slightly as Khazifa admitted that the magic was in the homebrew spirits, before grinning wildly. “Now this is the kind of magic I can really get behind!” he said loudly, picking up a shot-glass with gusto. Khazifa then admitted that perhaps… brains were easier cleared when the intrusion wanted to leave, and that there would be other methods of escaping if they were so desired. “Now that fills me with a bit more confidence,” Arkadius responded, before quickly downing the shot in one.
Arkadius didn’t know whether it was mere seconds or hours, but it felt like an age had passed when he woke up. He tried flapping his wings, but they weren’t really working very well. They were… burrowing into sand as he flapped. He had some vestigial memory of falling into the ocean, but it passed as quickly as it had appeared, Arkadius refusing to believe that he’d fallen into the ocean given he and the rest of the troupe were entirely bone-dry. Regardless, he was awake and standing now, ready to face whatever the world could throw at him.
While he had been not paying attention following his brief encounter with not entirely coping with the royal purple wine-like ocean, the others had partially scouted out the path ahead. A one-hundred foot path with tall, rotating statues lay ahead of them, ending with a tall gate inset into a very tall iron wall. With more statues partially inset into alcoves within the wall at infrequent points. It didn’t take much to work out the statues were magical watchtowers, given they were rotating softly and their eyes were glowing somewhat. The others were talking about how to proceed, and Arkadius wasn’t paying attention. His attention was being distracted by the statues, a plan forming in his head.
“Okay,” he announced suddenly, quietly but loud enough for the group to hear. “Depending on how far the statues can see, and depending on how fast we can move… we’ve either got a path of six seconds, or a path of twelve. I have no doubt Markas can make it, everyone else… we have a tough choice to make.”
Markas, obviously, darted off without a second thought. The group watched him practically dance between the statues, nimble of foot as well as mind, Arkadius admired that about Markas. A few moments later, Markas returned, journal in hand. “Arkadius, I believe you can translate these runes for me? They’re likely Infernal.” Arkadius took one look at them before nodding, “That one on the left… the left-hand door you say, that’s ‘Eternal’. The one on the right, the right-hand door I assume? That’s ‘Vigilance’. ‘Eternal Vigilance’... that sounds prophetic. Does anybody recognise that?”
The conversation returned to getting past the statues, and Arkadius was a little bit irritated part-way through, when Menace asked about going through in a bubble of Darkness. Arkadius tutted, quickly responding “We might as well go rootin’ and tootin’ down the path with our lyre and harp…” The group started at Arkadius for a few moments, a look of confusion and derision on most of their faces, before a loud grating sound was heard behind them. One of the statues had stepped off their spot, and was looking at the floor… where Markas had recently stepped when he was darting back from the gate. The group watched the statue with interest, hope and trepidation, before watching it make its way back to it’s set position. The group acted swiftly, using the momentary disruption to the watchtower cycle. Sheryl and Markas made it to the gate quickly, given Markas’ general increased speed and Matthew casting Haste on Sheryl to help, the rest had to revert to sneaking in view of the statues, trying to keep out of their gaze. Thankfully, the group reunited at the gate.
“What next? Arkadius asked, looking up at the top of the wall. “How about… I run up, and you fly up there with me?” Markas asked. Arkadius nodded, and Matthew pulled out his magical rope, nodding too. From position atop the wall, they were able to see what was ahead of them, a city with confusing paths leading to a castle in the distance, five towers. The entire city and landscape was grey, featureless and colourless. But the five towers were distracting, colours of the rainbow. While Matthew helped the others up the wall that side, Markas hopped down into the city. Arkadius followed, diving down and controlling his speed with his wings. The pair had the opportunity to take a look while the others followed along. There was the tinkle of breaking glass in the distance, which distracted Arkadius, leading him to jump into the air again to give an aerial view of the city.
He watched a figure hopping to and fro, occasionally picking something up from a shelf lining the paths, smash something (which caused the glass breaking sound), and he landed to let the others know what was going on. He landed next to Mace, who was going to smash one of the figures from a shelf himself, and took the figure off him, Mace was not expecting him to appear. They resumed conversation, discussing next steps: head to the castle, or follow the figure. As they talked, the figure appeared down the street from them, and everyone acted. Markas bolting to strike unarmed, Sheryl holding back a spell in case of disaster, and Menace doing his usual thing and attacking from hiding spots.
The figure was nearly taken down, but they disappeared as swiftly as they arrived, and there was silence for a few moments… followed by more glass tinkling. The group were disappointed, resolved to getting to the tower and finding the information quickly. Arkadius flies up over the buildings, sending mental messages back to Sheryl to help her through the maze. As they approached the tower, they passed the dragonborn who was still breaking figures, muttering word like ‘greed’, ‘corruption’ and ‘envy’ as it did so.
The group proceeded into the tower itself, climbing a spiral staircase as they were chased by an ocean of blood. The team went through various methods of climbing the stairs, and inevitably reached the top. Slamming the door behind them, the group found another figure, a white dragonborn. They identified themselves as Voxis, Sheryl soft-talking them into submission. She says she saw her city besieged, but corruption from within took down her city. She turned to trying to expunge corruption from the city. Since death, she has been blessed to serve the Archduke of Hell eternally, and feels she has served well, but… asks the group to kill her so that she can no longer serve. Arkadius sighed, not wanting another death on his hands, his own death-count was… too high for him to consider good.
Voxis says that she has seen a lot inside the Hells. She says inside Zariel’s tower there is an area that no one can go to, that she knows there’s a great power inside that tower that is difficult to control, and that that’s where Zariel went just before the portal opened.
The group proceeded to attack and kill Voxis, as Arkadius looked for a way out. By pure force of thought, Arkadius spotted a door, and wrenched it open. As he stepped through, he returned to the room in the Hung Rabbit, with Khazifa. He was back in the real world, and everything was really getting bad.
The stone floor in the alley was uncomfortable, but there was no other option. Swan was standing across from him, leaning on the wall of the building. “Thank you for not trying to run. We both know that would be the hard option, and staying is the easy option. Easier, anyway.” She grinned, showing her teeth slightly. “What riled you up so badly this time?”
Arkadius’ fists balled up subconsciously, his eyes closing in anger. He breathed in and out hard for a few moments, before sighing, his hands relaxing. “The fate of the multiverse is in our hands, and people don’t seem to want to give up the simplest of luxuries to give just a little bit of help to save the world. They just fall back to their natural...”
“Leopards do not change their spots willingly, Arkadius. I thought you of all people would have learned that by now. You need to… entice them, or force them. You’ve travelled the world, witnessed how people treat you because you are a tiefling. I thought you would have learned that lesson the hard way.”
Arkadius let out a loud laugh at that statement. “I’ve known about racism against tieflings since I was a kid, back in Shadowfell, and it’s no better out here in the material plane. I’ve become used to it… mostly. It still hits me at times, and I react badly. Regulus Chuckhammer, for example… I think he learned the lesson that not all tieflings are the same. But why should I even consider other people changing when I am the way I am? I’m far from perfect.”
Swan stood up straight, and took a step towards the street outside of the alley. She stopped, and lowered her voice so Arkadius could barely hear her. “Perhaps Jornos was right. Perhaps you are not the Emissary I was looking for. Perhaps I should… cut you loose, and let you run wild in this world, while it remains. And then when I have ascended…” She stepped quickly out of the alley, and was gone in the blink of an eye, before Arkadius could even react.
”I’ll have no need of you, and you can join your dearly beloved husband,” the voice whispered directly into his ear.
