Private Tales In the Pursuit of Power

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer
Dauner couldn't agree with Kristen any more than he already did. This cult had to be stopped before it could succeed in its plans. If left unchecked, Dauner feared they would interfere with his plans, and the idea of a bunch of people with no other aim than to damn the world was rather disturbing.

"You need not thank me. If I am right, then it means the order wasn't picked at random to serve as the enemy Koda would do war with. Whether I had accepted your request or not, I would still be involved in this, absent of choice"

If it was indeed the cult, then targeting the order was an intentional act, to both get back at him for his actions in Alliria several months prior, and to remove a potential threat. Either way, this was never a fight Dauner could sit out of.

"Rather. It should be I who offers my thanks. Had you not brought this matter before me, it might have been too late by the time I realized what truly was amiss"

To Dauner's great dissatisfaction, the moment they were having was brutally interrupted by a painful scream from the square. It appeared the soldiers had found the artifact, and one of them, out of curiosity, had touched it.
 
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Kristen's smile flattened to a taut line when the scream sounded.

"Oh, no, no, no!"

She didn't need to glance Dauner's way or give any sort of prompt. When she took off running, she knew he'd be right there beside her.

Her sabatons pounded through the debris and the ash. The hollow frames of Yslan's homes whizzed by. Her tabard flapped about her legs and her ponytail flowed with the wind of her effort. Through her mind ran all manner of if onlys, should haves, could haves: if only I'd insisted on investigating that feeling, I should have stopped right there to do so, I could have prevented this!

These torments had to be squelched. Reduced to far away whispers in a distant corner of mind. Not so dissimilar from the Chapel, she was here. Now. And action was required. Like then, she could not let emotion overpower her. She could not let this become like Vel Acan or the Canal.

Into the square.

"Where is he?" Kristen inquired urgently of a nearby Order scout.

"There!"

The scout's finger pointed to a ruin slightly larger than the rest, slightly bigger than the rest of the homes. Yes, this was very likely the chapel of Yslan, even though in its sorry and diminished state of blackened ruin it was difficult to tell. What motion was inside was partially obscured by the dark wooden beams which still stood, either upright or tilted or half-fallen.

Kristen, as a precaution, drew her sword. Held it in her left hand. Her artificial was slightly raised, porcelain fingers slightly bent.

"My heart prays for the best," she said, "but my hand prepares for the worst."

Dauner
 
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Dauner didn't need to think about it twice. He'd only just remembered the events in Alliria, and so the effects of the miasma were still fresh in his mind. Being close to it was more than enough to poison one's mind. Touching it, could potentially break the mind, erasing every trace of sanity that once were there. But that was only true for the purer miasma in Alliria. He could only hope the lesser purity of this one would mean lighter effects. In any case, they had to get to the scene and fast, lest casualties mount.

As soon as they got there, Dauner would look at the chapel ruin, searching for all that had suffered the miasma's poison. As Kristen drew her sword, four squires came running out of the chapel. The last one of them, having another squire hanging onto him, teeth in his shoulder. The squire who was biting his fellow was most likely the one who had touched the artifact. With aggrieved eyes, Dauner noted that this one was beyond redemption. His mind was gone. The four others, running out, had also been poisoned, but they still could be saved. Aside from those five, one squire already lay dead within the ruins, seemingly bitten to death.

Before Kristen could make a move, Dauner would fling himself into action, a palm to the head of the broken squire, knocking him back, and saving the bitten squire from him.

"Immediately put these four in quarantine" he'd order, turning then to the four in question. "You are to practice energy circulation until I return!" Given their levels, energy circulation could not save them, but it could delay the rate at which the poison spread, and protect their minds for a while.

Dauner then turned back the infected squire, as he got back to his feet. He looked no different from a beast at this point, and exuded nothing but bloodlust. But Dauner would stop Kristen from taking action. He was still of the order, after all. The least he could be offered, in death, was to be put to rest by one of his own.

"Cassandra!" he'd call, and with sword in hand, she would answer. Stepping forward to do what she must. Dauner would then speak to Kristen, his eyes still on the squire. "Take your eyes not off him. Gaze at what he once was. And at what he has become. This is the fate that awaits thousands should we fail" he spoke with a tone that only helped present the gravity of the situation. His gaze finally leaving the squire as he fell to Cassandra's sword, and falling on Kristen. "I suggest we inspect the cause of this all" he said, acting as though none of this ordeal had ever happened. Heartless would only be the best way to describe his seeming lack of care. He then gestured towards the ruin. "Shall we?"
 
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A sight most shocking, to see a man reduced to such feral savagery as to bite like some mindless undead into the shoulder of a companion. And like the risen dead, the squire driven straight to madness looked beyond saving, for empty were his eyes, voided of the humanity that was once within them.

Kristen had the immediate impulse to move, but Dauner was quicker. A swift strike freed the one squire from his corrupted companion. Again Kristen had the drive to act, but a quick gesture of the hand from Dauner halted her. As soon as he called for Cassandra, Kristen knew what he was doing, and she understood completely. She had said it herself: it is better that you take care of your own. Perhaps the most harrowing, most grim task one could be called upon to do in service for a brother-in-arms.

Take your eyes not off him. Gaze at what he once was.

Kristen watched. And within she lamented that she lacked the right Aspect of Divine Magic to protect others from such a fate as this. Aionus had not seen fit to bestow upon her the power of Blessings, maybe even one which could have protected a squire like this man, now felled by Cassandra's sword, from this. What must she do to prove herself worthy?

Kristen, for this lament, for not having pursued her vague intuition earlier, for the sight of the poor corrupted squire himself, felt her distraught tension manifest in her curling brows, her pursed lips, her steady and unblinking gaze being locked onto the man who once was. Dauner by contrast was stolid.

It took her a moment to respond. "Yes. We must."

Slowly, with appropriate apprehension, Kristen stepped into the ruin of the Yslan chapel. It didn't have much of a roof anymore, and only the thickest and strongest beams of wood stood like the silent remains of a charred forest. No grand cathedral was this modest chapel, so it did not take long at all to find, where once perhaps stood the Altar to Astra herself, the hole in the ground dug up by the squires.

From the hole came an ominous sound. Quiet, but there.

A steady beating.

Kristen peered only as much as she needed to in order to see what lay within. The Black Heart was there, like a discolored mockery of a human heart, pulsing away. The very sight of it brought a keen, primeval sense of wrongness—like the Heart was somehow a corporeal manifestation of all that one thought sacred being perverted—and foreboding—as if it were made of the very stuff which haunted the imaginations of men who heard sounds of the unknown in the dead of night.

"Never before have I seen something so profane."

Dauner
 
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As Cassandra had the squires take the one she had felled away, Dauner approached the squire who had been bitten to death by the infected squire. Signs of the miasma poison were already taking root on the mangled corpse. In death, still, his eyes portrayed pain, fear, and agony. Taking a moment to help shut his eyes one last time, Dauner headed into the ruin after Kristen, leaving the rest to Cassandra.

The inside of the chapel ruins was not much different from the rest of Yslan. Burnt out furniture, and collapse walls. Signs of what once was a roof, littered all over the place. And where the altar once stood, now was but a hole, within which lay the heart of Yslan's tragedy. One of the artifacts that would see a blighted era descend upon the Reach and soon all of Arethil. The black heart.

The sight of the desecrated altar gave Dauner a feeling of nostalgia. It reminded him of the old days on Segora. But he was quick to lay these thoughts aside, as his attention shifted to the main problem. The one that lay within the hole.

"Ah! It is a heart this time" he spoke, the feeling he got from it not feeling that different from what he'd felt before. Instead, it felt much tamer than the ones in Alliria. "Well, I guess they wouldn't have many powerful artifacts left after Alliria" he noted, reminiscing how he had a field day breaking their artifacts. At least the energy stored within those artifacts helped heal his injury, albeit to a rather insignificant extent.

Kristen would make a remark about the profanity of the heart, to which Dauner would let out a chuckle. "Really? Something of this level would be somewhat common where I come from" he'd comment, as he extended his hand, reaching out as he tried to touch the heart.
 
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"Dauner, wait!"

Alarm and concern were both on full display in Kristen's expression. Her hand was reached beseechingly toward him.

Then, a bit awkwardly, "Do you have some means of...protection?"

He had just said with full confidence that from where he hailed, Segora, things of this dark nature were more common. It stood to reason that, yes, he knew what he was doing after having weathered such an environment. Yet Kristen was concerned all the same, caution, though perhaps unwarranted in Dauner's case, rising to the surface.

Unwarranted in Dauner's case, but what about hers? What she had, all she had, was her faith in Aionus. She had no direct means of protection, no Blessings, no Wards, no holy relic by which to stave off the dark influence of the Black Heart. Would it be enough?

For herself, she didn't want to touch the profane thing and find out. Not even with her artificial hand. But as for Dauner:

"Sorry, I...I do not mean to doubt."

Dauner
 
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Dauner had expected Kristen to raise concern over his abrupt attempt to touch the source of the miasmic corruption. After all, it was only reasonable that she would hold doubt after witnessing what happened to the squire who had first touched it. It would be especially bad in Dauner's case if he lost his mind and went on a killing spree. Unlike the squire with barely a year of training under his belt, Dauner was a veteran of several wars. A slaughterer of thousands. A walking disaster, just waiting to happen. A mad Dauner would probably take an entire task force of elite warriors to bring down.

These concerns, he had already taken into consideration. However, a creeping doubt assaulted him. He had all this while assumed that Kristen had a way of protecting herself against the miasma, which was why he let her get this close to it with little worry. But then a suspicion crept its way into his mind. A seed of doubt that would make him question the safety of the one he now called his partner.

He was safe from vile energies of all kinds by virtue of his demonic nature and the way of the 'Supreme Heavenly Demon Monarch' he cultivated. These two made his inherent nature a demonic one. Something that was rather well covered up by lightning sword heart, innate lightning body, and human nature, which would make his inherent nature seem like one of lightning instead, while hiding all demonic aspects of his nature. That is, as long as he didn't use them. Instead, rather than doing him harm, such energies nourished him.

Kristen, on the other hand, didn't have a holy nature from what he could see, and she didn't carry any holy artifacts on her. He'd first thought she had an elemental ward or protective talisman on her, but he now came to question such thoughts. Those were one of the first things to acquire when preparing to face an enemy of a nature to which you had no natural immunity or resistance, or at least that was true in Segora, but what about in Arethil?

"Um… Kristen" he called, pulling away from the heart for a moment. "No, I believe your voice was perfectly well-timed, lest it be too late to withdraw once I bring the heart out of its hole. Worry not, I am above any threat the chaotic miasma, or profane heart could ever pose" he'd reassure her. "However, my worry lies with you, Kristen. Bear you any artifact, ward, talisman, or charm that grants you protection against the poison of the miasma?" he asked, hoping she had something. If not, getting her out of there and treating whatever poison may have already seeped into her body was a first priority. Afterwards, he could provide her with something to keep her safe from demonic miasma of low quality, such as the one the now stood in.
 
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Poison of the miasma?

And it was here that the slow dawning of horrified realization began to show in her eyes. There had been no such thing in the Our Queen of Stars Chapel...because the Desecrators had no chance to leave an artifact. Aside from that vague feeling of dread and profanity, her senses told her nothing here. She became all too aware that, while the ancient tome—The Eternal Aegis—she found in the ruined castle of Sentinel's Home might have some special quality to it, the book of verses at her hip now was mundane-made, no different than any other book one might find in a library.

"No. Yet, so long as I myself do not touch it...I..."

Her words were thin and her own ears didn't believe them. That had been her tacit assumption, that it was the one poor squire who had in his curiosity touched the Heart and that was how it happened. But she didn't know that for sure. She didn't know if it was by touch or if it was merely that squire who was closest to it, and that proximity ensured his doom faster than his companions.

Her original trip to Alliria accounted for nothing like this. The attack on the Chapel had been sudden, Kristen's drive to pursue justice was powerful, and Proctor Magomo was not adverse to throwing her into "the deep end of the lake."

Now, much like in Vel Acan, that crushing feeling of being in over her head descended upon her.

She took a tentative step back, as if one too sudden might bring upon her the full tidal wave of the Black Heart's dark power. The edge of the hole now blocked the sight of the Heart. She felt fine. She felt fine.

Until she felt a cold tingle, like the brush of a skeletal finger, drift up her spine and into the back of her head. Her shoulders twitched.

Dauner
 
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Dauner nearly facepalmed when Kristen gave her reply. This was something he had failed to prepare for. Back in Alliria, he had been sure to hand the Reaper's bane to Elra, which had ensured her protection from the miasma, as the sword itself carried the intent of a greater evil. The white silk cloth around the sword protected Elra from possession by the sword as well, so all loose ends had been accounted for. This time, though, his assumption of prior preparation had blinded him to precaution, and Kristen now risked doom due to his mistake.

"We have to get you treated, before the poison starts to take effect. Just let me know when a cold starts to creep all over your body. Here, come. We have to hurry" he said, leading Kristen out of the ruins. "Silver knight Cassandra, immediately quarantine the ruined chapel building. No one is to get in unless they have level 2 clearance"

As soon as he finished saying that, he'd continue leading Kristen to a quieter place.
 
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"I was careless," Kristen said in a small voice, speaking to herself. "I should have known."

Her feet felt leaden, her legs stiff, yet this was more from dismay over her novice blunder than from the effects of Heart's miasmic poison. All that time spent secretly reading Celestialist texts when she was a little girl, pouring over the testimonies from ages ago, the recounting of tales of old, and what good had it done her? She should have known the moment she saw those Desecrators in Alliria what she was truly up against, what foul tactics they employed even if they hadn't the chance to do so there.

These were the sorts of mistakes she could no longer afford to make. I will destroy you, Pirian, Proctor Magomo had said. Well, not if her own carelessness did the deed first.

"There was a cold...feeling," Kristen said. She blinked rapidly. Looked squarely to Dauner. "Are...are my eyes alright?"

There had been just now a scratching sensation in both of them, as if they had been irritated by thick dust. If only that could be the simple truth of it, something as benign as dust and nothing more.

Dauner
 
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"They are just as beautiful as the first time I saw them" he'd respond, a hint flirty in his reply. "Don't worry, everything's going to be okay" he'd reassure her.

As soon as Dauner had arrived at a fitting place, he'd pull out what seemed like a bowl from inside his jacket, which would logical not have fit and left no trace. Afterwards, he spent a few seconds, rummaging, with his hand inside his jacket, as though searching from within a mass of objects, only to pull out a pestle, a few herbs, and a small knife in quick succession.

Kristen's question came to Dauner as a little worrying, as it meant the poison had started acting. But as long as he was fast enough in making an antidote, or suppressant. Truth be told, he hadn't had any time to study the nature of the poison, so the only way he could make an antidote for it, was by relying on his own natural affinity with it. In other words, by using his blood in the mixture. If not, the mixture would at most serve to suppress the poison. On the brighter side, there was still a chance to study the poison and make an antidote without using his blood, if the poison in Kristen was suppressed long enough.

Dauner proceeded to measure and put into the bowl an appropriate amount of each herb, using the knife to cut off any excess parts on the herbs. He then pounded them together afterwards. Soon the liquids from the herbs would be squeezed out and mix, giving the required mixture. Dauner pulled out, yet again, a small wooden cup from within his jacket, pouring the liquid mixture into it. Dauner was unsure if Kristen would be agreeable to drink something with his blood in it, and so tried handing it over as it was. But before she could take it, he'd pull it back, almost facepalming again.

"Pull yourself together" he said to himself. Any more careless actions due to his overthinking could lead to disastrous consequences. So, using the knife to put a cut on his finger, he let a drop of blood flow down his finger, and into the mixture. He'd hide the wound on his finger immediately, as it near instantly covered up.

"Here! This should help with the poison" he said. "There might be some side effects, but those, at least, are better than a death filled with agony". The mixture wouldn't immediately get rid of the cold sensation, but would instead accelerate it, which would be followed by an outburst of heat from within. The freezing cold and extreme heat would alternate between each other every minute. These would be accompanied by hallucinations, and relative numbness of the body. This would last for anywhere between 15 minutes to 2 hours. Dauner could only pray Kristen had a strong enough willpower to endure it all, and not pass out. He'd move in to help if she did, but until then, he'd use this ordeal to test her. And who knows, she might yet walk out of this with more to gain than she first bargained for.
 
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Whether it was the actual truth or he was simply saying it was the truth, Dauner's reassurance helped significantly. Hope latched readily onto threads of suggestion, a lattice of wherewithal formed thereby to see one through desperate times. The mind, the will—powerful agents indeed.

The place they came to was the Kodans' own encampment once again. And why not? Tents were already erected, supplies and cots available.

Kristen sat down on one such cot and Dauner went to work. She wrestled her pauldrons and her gorget off, then shed her gauntlets and simply let them fall to the floor. She rested her hands on her armored knees, and her head hung while she kept her breathing steady. In some ways it felt like a fever. But, at the present moment, only the shadow of a fever, ghostly symptoms of chills and fatigue and irritation about her eyes (and tickling the inside of her nose). So faint were these that it was actually possible by her reckoning that she could be imagining it all.

Yet that first frigid caress up her spine continued to suggest otherwise.

Dauner offered—

No wait. He did not. Kristen looked baffled for a moment, but soon enough Dauner turned back around and offered the bowl again.

"Thank you," she said. Her voice sounded to her like it came from the other side of a tunnel.

She drank the mixture. Bitter was the taste, and underlying it was a strangely sweet and metallic tang she couldn't quite place. She sat there for a moment. Long enough to think that perhaps she really had imagined her symptoms, that maybe she was lucky and had vacated the chapel just in time.

"I..."

Then the first plunge of temperature wracked her, and she gasped and collapsed back onto the cot as if driven down by a horrid sense of vertigo. Kristen wrapped her arms about herself, huddling up like a blizzard had come down upon Yslan and its biting winds were howling mercilessly into the tent. Then she panted, stretched her arms and legs out far, once the flash of heat arrived. Again and again, alternating, curling up and stretching out as the fluctuations in body temperature assailed her. Sweat plastered her hair to her head.

Then came the hallucinations.

Kristen brought an arm up to cover her eyes. Every now and again, she would gasp with some small horror revealed, some long forgotten terror come back to torment her again. Her breathing was labored.

Her other arm, that with her hand of flesh and blood, tumbled over the side of the cot, palm facing up, fingers curling and trembling.

Dauner
 
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"Are you alright?" Dauner wanted to ask, but not a word parted his lips. Of course, she wasn't alright. Her body was literally jumping from the snow covered mountain top to the magma in the deeps of a volcano, and all that while naked. And all this while, who knows what she was seeing. Horrid monsters? Unsightly horrors? Or maybe even a dancing dragon. He wouldn't put it past his blood to cause such silly visions.

If he himself hadn't experienced something like this before, he'd probably be unable to know the extent of the torture that were the side effects. Within her body was a battlefield. The alternating heat and cold was a result of the antidote battling it out with the poison within her body. The numbness and hallucinations were just a side effect of directly ingesting his blood.

"You should lie down. It'll be over in a moment. I hope" he said, that last part leaving his mouth as a silent whisper in a hushed voice. He'd help get her a pillow to lay her head on. He'd also sit by her, and hold her hand. Maybe that could help. But that was as much as he could do. The rest was entirely dependent on her.

"Stay strong"
 
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Kristen did lie down. The pillow she could only just feel beneath her head and her neck. The arm she had draped over her eyes felt as though it were both made of lead and alien from her body, as if not just her right hand but the whole of her arm had become artificial. This numbness, of course, was not just isolated there.

Vaguely, she had the awareness of squeezing Dauner's hand tightly. Then firmly. Then meekly.

Through the peaks and valleys of hot and cold she went. She may have skirted the edge of consciousness and dipped into the blackness on a few occasions, but she couldn't be sure. The hallucinations made it difficult to distinguish between the waking world and that of dreams, whether her eyes were closed and arm draped over them or not.

Thirty-seven minutes later, Kristen's body finally began to relax, the alternating tensions of curling up against the cold and stretching out against the heat ceasing.

Her arm slid away from her face. Her entire countenance was slick with sweat, and she looked like a woman who had not slept in three days.

Her gaze fell over toward Dauner. "That was..."

She tried for a smile to show that she was alright, but she wasn't sure if her muscles cooperated.

"...unpleasant."

Dauner
 
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Dauner interpreted that phrase she just uttered to mean, "I'm still alive and kicking". And he didn't even have to lend her any aid. She was surprisingly stronger than most her age, and she definitely was stronger than him when he was her age, but he'd never admit that.

"Haha. I'm sure it was" Dauner laughed. "But you've proven stronger than I first expected, and have overcome quite a trial, I must add. I'd say on a total of ten, you scored an eight" he added, jokingly. "Rest! We've still got quite a bit of work left for when you wake"

Dauner would wait for Kristen to fall asleep, before moving her to a more comfortable place, and leaving the rest to a female squire. No gentleman, he was, but yet, such basic manners wasn't something he lacked. While Kristen rested, Dauner would attend to the squires who had been poisoned earlier. Their cases were less severe than Kristen's since they had already begun cultivating haer, and the energy offer a bit of a resistance to corruption.
 
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An eight out of ten. Kristen could absolutely live with that. A weak exhalation of air, mayhap approximating the goodwill of a genial laugh, rose in response. To put a better point on it, she curled her hand into a thumbs-up.

The mixture Dauner had provided was a hellish ordeal, but, deep in the cavernous recess that was the dark and instinctual part of mind, she was glad to have endured it, knowing what may well have become of her had she not. The corruption of a Dark One's profane power was not to be trifled with, and this was a lesson she would take dearly to heart.

Rest!

"The easy part..."

She said, the word part escaping her lips like the last sailor fleeing a sinking ship, for not a moment later her half-lidded eyes closed entirely. Her breathing became restful, and her consciousness soon accepted the peaceful invitation of dreams (ones not beset with nightmarish hallucinations, thank Aionus).

She slept.

And slept.

Until at last, she woke. Though her immediate surroundings had changed, the shadows from the sun were noticeably at different angles and longer lengths. The little peaking of sky through the tent opening and the ruins of Yslan beyond had turned from blue to a rustic orange, signaling the onset of evening.

Kristen sat up slowly (thankful that she'd the presence of mind to at least shed the upper half of her plate armor before imbibing the mixture and resting). She rubbed at her face, smoothing out exhaustion with the tips of her fingers.

To the female squire she said, "It is still the same day...yes?"

Hopefully she had not slept that long, seeing days pass.

Dauner
 
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Helping the squires get rid of their poison was the easy part. The haer they had cultivated meant Dauner didn't have to use any blood for them, which a good thing. He didn't need to use up any more of his blood essence. After all, a single drop of that essence was enough to evolve a low-level demon, so it was rather precious.

The hard part was waiting. Kristen had fallen into a deep sleep, as she rid herself of the exhaustion from the earlier ordeal, and Dauner decided not to go back to the chapel until Kristen had woken. As such, the first night went by, with the scout team preparing itself to leave the ruins and move onto its next task. And just as the second night dawned, she woke.

Arriving as if expectantly, Dauner would interrupt before the squire could answer Kristen. "You finally wake" he said, gesturing for the squire to leave them. "I'm glad you yet live. To be honest, I wasn't sure you'd ever wake after the first month went by. Come, you should eat something, lest two months of hunger come to bite you at once" he said, in all seriousness of tone and facial expression, in his attempt to pull a prank on her.
 
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A relief to see Dauner there, coming in to the tent and greeting her return to the waking world.

Followed by panic.

"Two months!?" Kristen's face paled horridly and through the grogginess she clapped her hands to her head. Late, late, Blessed Aionus, Holy Sentinel, how distressing it was to be late!

Rapidly did she speak. "I-I-I require a quill! And parchment! I must send a missive to Proctor Magomo posthaste! Goodness! Snickerdoodle!"

Snickerdoodle. The word Kristen would on occasion use as a kind of exclaimed profanity, this after having been caught as a child, red-handed, by her mother sneaking into the kitchen at the Pirian Estate, harrying the servants for cookies of the same name. Oh how her ineffectual lying, the crumbs sticking to either side of her lips as she spoke them in her childish guilt and aversion to punishment, had earned her Mother's ire that day.

"He shall think me derelict of duty, i-i-if he has not already!"

Dauner
 
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If Dauner had known it could be this fun to tease her, he'd have done it much sooner. Her reaction was pretty normal, for someone in her situation, and that was pretty much the reaction Dauner had expected, but her exclamation at the end was made it all feel worthwhile. A muffled, laugh preceded his next words.

"Snickerdoodle?" he asked, as he tried suppressing his urge to laugh. And, apparently failing. "That's really, quite cute actually" he said. He could imagine a thousand ways of yelling profanity at the air, but this one he'd never thought could ever make that list.

"Ok, ok, calm down. Take a deep breath" he'd proceed to try helping her calm down as he prepared to tell her the truth. "Don't get mad at me, but…" he continued, taking a step back and out of her reach. "That was a joke. It's only been a day" he finished, trying as hard as he could not to look awkward, and then taking an extra step back.
 
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Kristen blinked. Once, and then several times more. Plainly upon her countenance was the difficulty in stopping the runaway wagon of acute dismay when it came to being late. In a way, it was almost like she had woken up a second time, roused from some awful nightmare and into the much calmer setting awaiting her in the dawn—or evening, as it were.

"Oh. O-Oh." Kristen let out a sigh of relief so great her pent-up stature deflated visibly to relaxation. "Only a day. Goodness. That is fair news to grace my ears."

She blushed, realizing then that she'd been teased. The redness intensified when she further realized that Dauner had taken a couple of preemptive steps back. It wasn't very lady-like to swat at people, even playfully, but...she would be a liar if she said the impulse had never struck her before. The language of touch, in all its forms, had a power that the spoken word often sorely lacked.

Well. At least the humor of the tease helped in some small way to blunt the horrific ordeal which had come before.

Kristen swung her legs over the edge of the cot. "I trust that nothing dreadful has happened in the interim?"

Dauner
 
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This was a trait that made Kristen seem distinctly different from Ayana. She always had this noble elegance to her. Ayana would have instinctively thrown the largest object she could find in the room at Dauner. And he knew that much because it had already happened on more than one occasion. But the fun, he got from teasing the easily flustered Ayana, outweighed the pain of getting struck on the head by his cupboard. In a way, Dauner was pretty childish when it came to his teasing girls. And the red on Kristen's cheeks made it all feel worthwhile. At that point, the only thing between him and poking Kristen's flustered cheeks, was the distance.

"Define dreadful" Dauner would say, as he turned around and walked outside the tent. This was mainly because, Kristen was still dressed in rather light nightwear, so he was giving her space to get dressed. Of course, the squire Dauner had left her with would have helped take her out of her armor, and gotten her into more comfortable clothing, lest she got all sore once she woke. Throughout their initial conversation, Dauner simply acted like he didn't notice. This was due, in most part, to the fact that such a realization on Kristen's part would most likely lead to a feeling of embarrassment. A childish Dauner would love to see her get flustered again, but he knew better than to take things too far.

From outside the tent, he'd continue speaking like nothing had happened. "If by dreadful, you mean, 'did someone die?', then no. But, if what you mean something more along the lines of a potentially great danger, then I guess the fact that Kodan scouts have discovered what happened here, and sent a message home to tell it should count as dreadful"
 
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Somewhat low in the order of precedence was awareness of her attire. There had been a mostly unconscious knowledge that the rest of her armor had been removed, yes, for the weight was gone of course but also there was not that quiet hum of soreness for having slept in it. Only when Dauner stepped out of the tent and the female squire stepped forward again did Kristen notice that her battle regalia was set down beside the cot and that she was dressed in more comfortable nighttime garb.

As Dauner spoke, she started to change out of the nightwear and back into her arming garments. Pants on, doublet on, working on her boots as Dauner finished.

"Yes, I do believe that would suit the word 'dreadful' very much. Would that we could simply warn the Kodans of the danger lurking beneath the floorboards of their kingdom. Alas, upon unheeding ears would such a warning fall."

And it was not as though the Kodans were strictly wrong in that regard, either. Why would they listen to any such thing from their declared enemy, the Sovereign Order? Even if Kristen herself delivered the warning, with evidence as scant as it was by the Kodan perspective, the drums of war would overpower all she had to say.

The Kodans would not be of any help. If anything, an active hindrance and certain threat. Yet somewhere within their kingdom peril awaited in the shadows, the mastermind behind the Desecrators loomed, and this coming war was only a boon to them.

She got her boots on and laced.

"What news of that foul Heart?"

Dauner
 
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She wasn't wrong. There was no way Koda would believe such a warning from the order. And sending them a warning under the name of another with so little proof would only fall on deaf ears. Even still, there was still a chance that the message would never get to the Kodan royal throne, as the cult behind the scenes would certainly do anything to stop any action that puts their grand plan at risk. Not that any of that mattered. Dauner was going to destroy the cults plan anyway, and then have the head of the king of Koda, during the war. That much was inevitable.

"Nothing, really. I have yet to check up on it after yesterday, and I was hoping you'd be there when I did so again. That must have played a part in my delay. Though, I was mostly preoccupied with helping the squires who had also suffered poisoning yesterday" he'd reply. The main reason was mostly because he didn't want to do it alone. That would have proved rather boring, no matter how he looked at it. But he wasn't going to be saying that out loud.

He was half expecting her to raise some concerns about going close to the heart again. After all, it was the whole reason she had been out of commission for an entire day. Plus, she could expect him to have the herbs he used in large supply. And most importantly, he imagined she'd not want to go through the entire detox process a second time. Dauner could always tell her it got better every time, but for anyone to voluntarily go through that a second time, they would have to have determination which bordered on desperation, like he once had. Or have some really weird fetish, none of which he could see on Kristen from the surface.

"I suggest you eat something before we get going. We might just end up too busy for it later" he'd propose.
 
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For the best, she supposed, that the blasphemous Heart was left in place in the interim. The one good thing Kristen stayed herself from doing was blundering off into the chapel by herself, armed only with her ignorance and misguided assumptions about the true danger of the sinister artifact waiting within. Perhaps this was how many a young adventurer met their end, setting out with a heart laden with good intentions yet finding themselves woefully overmatched against their chosen adversity and with no company upon whom to rely.

Again the glow of gratitude washed over her for Dauner, for his experience and swift action. If the future revealed that this were something she could pursue more, hunting and purging the vile corruptions of Dark Ones upon Arethil, then this ordeal would leave her better prepared for it.

I suggest you eat something before we get going.

"I will. I promise I will," Kristen said. She'd only a minor wondering at the destination Dauner had in mind, because there was something more pressing.

"First, we must do something about that Heart. Contain it if we can, destroy it if we must, but something has to be done."

She stood, and the female squire helped her with her pauldrons, the last pieces of armor to be donned.

"I know that I lack protection, but..."

Something. Something. Protection or no protection, there had to be a way. Though the path to it was shrouded in the murk of the unknown, Kristen could see the best possible outcome: the Heart, through investigation, providing a clue to put them on the right trail.

Dauner
 
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"No" Dauner would interject. "That heart is a valuable clue. We need to study it further if we are to hope to get a hint on the desecrators' next move" he added. By studying the inlaid magic within the cursed artifact, many truths could be brought to light, and so Dauner was reluctant to let it go. The alternative of using the heart was waiting for the desecrators to strike a few more places, and then studying the pattern. But he very much doubted Kristen would agree to use such a method, and he, too, was too pressed for time to do so.

"I know that I lack protection, but…"

"Just leave that part to me" Dauner would respond with a reassuring smile. It was true that he had failed to anticipate the current events, and as such had brought no artifacts with him that could be of help. But that didn't change that he still had an artifact on him that was great at these sorts of situations.

"Meet me by the chapel when you're ready" he said, as he walked away from the tent. He'd leave her with enough time to finish readying herself, and then eat something, before joining him in front of the chapel ruins.
 
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