After Hours (Hadrian)

[Kassan]

After Hours Timestamp: 65th Day of Spring Kassan was on duty again tonight. The air was cool, but not cold, with just enough warmth for him to feel comfortable. It was a little cloudy, the moon just poking through banks of broiling grey. He looked around introspectively. The storm seemed an age ago now, but it had left its mark. Damage could be found all across the city, and Kassan could not shake the memories of the horrors that had prowled these streets. Mutations born of the Aperture, and the storms fury. Great worms, bellowing, writhing. His eyes went to his glaive, faint bloodstains still touched the cool metal. He could not clean it. Perhaps he'd never be able to, the beasts legacy with him for eternity. Pacing near the broken bridge, he stopped, rubbing both of his hands across his head. His faith had been tested, but unbroken. Uphis had gotten him through everything, his Lord's strength channelled through his own hands, and exacted upon the city's defence. The Mother City had been shaken fiercely, and perhaps now it was more aware of its own weaknesses. Suddenly, a figure caught his eye. He turned into the darkness, the shadow flitting into an alleyway. "Who goes there," he growled into the night, "it is after curfew, so show yourself."

[Hadrian]

Hadrian knew the curfew, but it had slipped his mind. Most things had, actually, as he wandered the city. In this most religious of cities -- at least insofar as there were four established Alvina worshiped with great fervor -- his mind had bent further toward the gods. Those who had become his own more than the others -- Eyris, Ionu, Nysel, Laviku -- and those he might pursue in the future -- Zintila, Zulrav, Semele, Tanroa -- were not the tetrarchy of Nyka, and so he kept his prayers silent, sounding only in the vaults of his own mind and soul. Ionu, he said in his running commentary with the divine (they rarely responded), what reality lies behind these illusions? Are they yours? Do you hold some special power here? The lack of answer was to be expected, but there was, as always, a drop of sadness in the sea of himself. He was not wont to be melancholy, but there was a sadness to the gods and to the struggle for life of the lesser creatures, as well. But he blinked out of his reverie at the voice, cursed himself silently and stopped. He didn't want any trouble here, where most citizens seemed to be monks to very present deities. "I apologize," he called quietly, stepping into the light. "I lost track of the time."

[Kassan]

Kassan was unsure what to make of the man that stepped into the pool of light. He lessened his grip on the glaive. There was something about the voice; sincere in its simplicity. "It's unwise to do so in Nyka," Kassan said, voice softening somewhat. "I can tell you are not from the city, as you can probably tell the same about me." He shifted the weight on his feet, placing the glaive in a vertical position, so the blade pointed up towards the dark, clouded sky. He made sure the weapon was highly visible. After all, the foreigner would be unlikely to recognise the sigil on his robes, marking him as one of Uphis' monks. "I wonder what drew you here, to the Mother City. Many foreigners speak of an energy that pours forth from the Aperture. The Heart of the World. And the Lance. That vivid moment of recollection." Kassan made a wan smile to the man who had broken curfew. It was not ironclad law, it was simply one of many unspoken codes. Some monks were out for a fight, wielding their own sense of rough justice. Kassan did not dirty his hands though. His skills were for honour, given to him by Uphis to use in his name, not to pick fights on the Nykan streets.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian laughed quietly at his own expense, marked by the goddess of wisdom, but behaving with his same old foolishness. Perhaps someday he would be truly wise; that was the path he had chosen, he thought. But at least this monk, the foreign-born monk, seemed reasonable. Hadrian was well-schooled enough to recognize him as an acolyte of Uphis the Sharp-Bladed, but that most martial of deities seemed to have a man who loved peace among his followers, which was all to the best. "I am passing through on my way back to Zeltiva," he admitted. "I was not aware that foreigners were able to view the Aperture." To be honest, that thought did entice him to stay a while even if he had to wait for his ship anyway. "That would be something," though he tried not to show undue interest. It would be a curiosity, of course, but he would not die if he didn't see it. There were wonders and wonders in Mizahar, and he had access to many. At least it seemed he wasn't going to be punished for breaking the taboo against walking at night.

[Kassan]

Kassan laughed. This man was truly a foreigner. "You do not view the Aperture. You sense it. You feel it. It invades everything, if you stay in this quartered city long enough." Zeltiva. He had never been there, but he had heard a little. A city of knowledge, and of seafaring. They built ships that crossed the oceans and the seas - perhaps some went to Ekytol. Traders docking, and travelling into Yahebah, the city from whence he had come. "It would be something, yes. But I doubt you would survive," Kassan did not mean to sound harsh, or blunt. But it was true. He had survived down there by the skin of his teeth. It took discipline and conviction to overcome the demons that lurked in the darkness, whether they were mental or real.

[Hadrian]

"Yes," he said, recalling to mind what he had read about Nyka. Many magical scholars at the University disdained the zealotry of the Alvinas' followers, and while he didn't necessarily share their prejudices, he had gone on to travel beyond the ivory tower mentality of the University in order to understand things better and make decisions on his own. "Well, I can sense it, but it seems too big to risk focusing on it. They always tell me magic is dangerous, and for once I'm listening." He smiled, self-deprecating. "Would you mind telling me more, or is it personal, private information? Or not fit for foreign scholars?"

[Kassan]

"Magic?" Kassan asked. "I know little of magic, only the pain my blade can inflict, and how deep it can cut. But you're right. The Aperture is more than dangerous. It can break a man - not just kill them, but break them absolutely." The man was a thinker. That much Kassan could tell. There was no criminality in his countenance, only raw curiosity that had pulled him round the city past curfew. There were monks who would beat this man as he stood. In fact, most of Uphis' men would. But he was disciplined. Punching this man in the face for no particular reason meant degrading his martial skills on such a trifling thing. The Alvina had taught him to rise above that sort of behaviour. "You can ask, and I will answer, though I do not know the specifics you seek. No one does. The Aperture is everything and nothing. Monsters have spawned from its depths, but most importantly, I have been down there. As every Monk has. It is part of our sacred initiation."

[Hadrian]

Of course the Aperture would take a man apart piece by piece. Nothing was ever easy where gods or magic were concerned. Curious, he held up the back of his hand that the monk might see the mark Eyris had left there, gleaming gold against his pale skin, the Lormar symbol. He did not peel back his clothes to show the inverted triangle on his back behind his left shoulder, the mark of Ionu. They balanced each other, he thought, but some people took things the wrong way. "I too have been initiated," he said quietly. "I wonder if Eyris would appear to me down there, or if the Celestials would usher me out." His goddess was the more powerful, of course, as was Ionu, as was Nysel and Laviku, to whom he had been telling his secrets since sailing out of Avanthal. But this was their city, and perhaps his own patrons would not have his back were he to offend the monks of Nyka. "Should we go someplace else to speak?" he asked, the curfew considered, whether legal or not. "I would ask you about your initiation if it is not considered rude."

[Kassan]

"Interesting..." Kassan said, eyes falling on the divine marks. It was not the first time he had seen a person marked by their respective deities. "Uphis does not mark his followers." He winced at the man's mention of such a thing. "This is the Celestial's City. Remember that well. Your Gods have little leverage here." For who had appeared to him in the Aperture? Uphis, that was who. The swordsman had cast away the darkness, burnishing light moving towards him, breaching the past. He eyed the man again. His initiation was personal, of course, but he did not find the question rude. He softened somewhat. The man couldn't help but be curious. Nyka was no Syliras. "Are you aware of the Safehaven Hostel? Foreigners are at liberty within its walls. Perhaps you can ask me your questions there. My shift finishes in half a bell's time. I can come and meet you then."

[Hadrian]

"Of course," he said. "I meant no disrespect. I was merely thinking out loud." Uphis of the sharp blades, he thought. Son of the dead god of war, enemy of the current, savage Myri, la belle dame sans merci. He wondered for a moment what the godling's plans were, how he was going to reclaim his father's bequest from the Goddess-Queen from the other side of the continent. Surely the four orders would have to be forged into one weapon to threaten her. But ah, thoughts for another time. "If you are on duty," he said, "why don't you escort me there?" He smiled, but shook his head, releasing the humor. "I know the place. I will be there when you arrive." He nodded his head respectfully and began to move off, ready to cloak himself in illusory shadows when he turned a corner, the better to avoid another run in with the law. Such as it was.