Completed Getaway (Inoadar)

[Amolina]

Amolina’s heart was beating like she had been participating in a fight, and she was breathing hard, like she had been running at full speed. She had been deeply asleep when the trashing, delirious Parnell closed one hand around her arm in an iron grip, while throwing his other hand into her face like he tried to stab and kill something. She grabbed his shoulders and tried to push him away, shouting at him, shouting his name. Parnell woke up, writhed on the floor like he was out of control of his own body, gave a weird laugh and babbled about their shared misery, coughed blood, had an attack of nausea, tried to retch without success, whined and whimpered in agony, confusedly rambled about having to kill, then stared at her with tearfilled and bloodshot eyes and fell back into sleep. This short intermezzo had been intense, shocking, repulsive. When it was over Amolina moved away from Parnell and sat with her back leaning on the wall while she watched him warily. Her face was aching after the punch she had recieved. Probing it carefully with her fingers, she wondered how bad it was. When it came to Parnell, she had no idea what was happening to him, but she knew this wasn’t how people used to react to a concussion. What could it be? She had not heard of something like this happening to somebody since…she had been poisoned. Suddenly, surprisingly Parnell’s odd and confused words made sense to her: “My misery…is your misery…is our misery”… Her misery. Poison. The idea seemed incredible at first. But the more she thought about it the more likely it seemed. Parnell was a poison maker. And he had been crammed with weapons. It wasn’t hard to believe that he could have poisons on him as well, perhaps poisoned weapons he had somehow lost control over in the fight against the boatman…hitting himself instead of his enemy. She had no way to know how bad it was, if he was going to recover or die. If somebody had asked her before this ill-fated escape, she might have thought it his just deserts to fall victim to his own poisons. It’s easy to say that kind of careless things when it’s only in theory and at a distance, and the living, breathing person isn’t there. But it was very different now, with Parnell just a few chimes ago writhing in agony on the floor, confused and desperate, coughing blood and crying helplessly, gazing into her eyes like a starving man begging for bread. But really Amolina Moletta, are you daft, not long ago this man wasn’t averse to flaying you alive, he would take pleasure in this if the roles were reversed. Parnell wouldn’t help you if you were the one writhing on the floor, coughing blood… Hey, this is your common sense speaking to you, sense I say, what’s with you chicken-heart, don’t be such a squeamish fool, drag him out and kick the blighter into the water, get rid of him for good… But like so many other humans Amonlina wanted to believe herself a logical being that took well thought through and sensible decisions based on facts…while truth was that she was the usual sad mix of obscure and mostly unexplained and intuitive motivations that makes a person do things that could easily be considered totally mindless. Now her common sense was silenced, buried under a wave of irrational emotion. She realized she didn’t want Nolan Parnell to die all of a sudden on the floor of a boathouse, crying. lacerated, lost in his misery and pain, with only her to keep him company. It was perhaps silly of her, this, but it was human. But she wasn’t sure how to help him. Amolina had no idea whatsoever what to do with a poisoned person. And bar Parnell, and perhaps Gaius Alzelin, she knew only one person who was knowledgeable about medicin and poisons and…well…research… Valerius Nitrozian. But would she want to speak with Valerius about this? She was sure Valerius would NOT like it. For a start, she could hardly speak with Valerius without first having searched Nolan Parnell in order to see if she could find evidence. She pulled the blankets away and started with baring the easiest part, his feet. Quite immediately she found a small vial there, in one of his socks. A really weird finding…it looked sly…this might be one of the poisons she had suspected he had on him. She didn’t dare to touch it so she wrapped in in the sock and put it among the fishing gear. And next…she tried to decide the best way to proceed. She felt uneasy. But if nothing stopped her, she would obviously attempt to search his body for weapons, poisons, marks, wounds or other evidence…

[Inoadar]

Inoadar's reality was a blurred montage of brutal memories. From his father's regular beatings to 'toughen him up' for service to the Uphis quarter of Nyka, to his eventual disgust that his son had twisted his martial purity into the masochistic extremes of the Second Edict.

Images of his mother added the sense of being feared, not supported or nurtured. Her looks and actions always colored by twitches and backsteps based on outright fear of her son. The confusion of never knowing if she approved of his initial attempts to adhere to his father's intentions, or pride in his facing him down to follow his own path when he'd grown to young manhood. It seemed more the sense that she didn't approve of either, but was afraid to say.

Fights, scoldings, threats, ultimatums. His father's assessment of his life being wasted and wanting no further part of it. His mother cowering in silent fear of yet another brawl. He was frequently left wandering if the fights were his father's last resort to impose more warrior training on him. Wandering if it was on purpose or just instinctive. Being locked in his room, the door actually nailed shut, his father waiting to beat him for disobedience if he climbed out the window, tepid water passed in a tray beneath the door to sustain him.

How many days? The tray doubling as a chamber pot. Did his father allow his mother to clean it before it was returned under the door? There was the brief sense of triumph when he outlasted him. His reward, final expulsion from the house. Was the look of relief on his mother's face the result of there being no more contention in the house, or the fact that he was gone, he still didn't know.

His joyful embracing of a united goal in the Second Edict. His worth finally recognized. Only to fall into political exploitation. His "execution" of the elder as his parting gesture. The family picking him up in the wild. His slip, exposing his act of retribution to the father. The man ignoring his logic, his begging, his threats. Determined to return him to "justice". Another father ignoring what was best for his family to demand adherence by all to his priorities. All the subsequent "why's". His own, pleading the man to see reason. The fathers response with the same word. The whys blending together in a bloodbath of silenced witnesses, all asking "why", begging "why".

'Why am I thinking of this stuff?' he puzzled, finding himself awake, daylight beyond the grimy boathouse windows. The fire was long since out, no residual heat coming from that direction. It felt as though the poison was mostly worn off. There was still a mild vertigo and nausea, but nothing debilitating. His head was finally clear, but he ached all over. But it felt like "honest" pain. The kind obtained from a good fist fight. He winced, imagining his father's satisfied smirk. He rolled over slowly and stiffly to see if Amolina was still there. He'd had the vaguest impression of having wrestled with her...and lost.

His bracer, empty dart loops, bits of broken darts, stains from a variety of spilled poisons and all, was lying on the floor beside him. His arm stung from a number of cuts.

[Amolina]

Morning Day 21 Fall 513 AV, around 10 bells. It had still been dark and very early in the morning when Amolina had left Nolan Parnell sleeping like in coma. When she returned it was later in the morning, the sun was shining and the daily activity in the fisherman’s district in the harbor was in full swing. She pushed the door to the boathouse open and found Parnell still on the floor, but awake. She wondered how long time it had been since he had woken up…but before she had time to say anything or ask questions he had grabbed the cane. In one agile movement he came up from the floor, looking ready to…and Amolina instinctively took a step back and slammed the door shut again. She was outside now, wondering what the petch she ought to do. Parnell had seemed to be in really bad shape …and she had taken the risk of an early, early morning visit to the Nitrozian Estate in order to seek help. As Valerius believed in sound habits and fitness he had been up already, doing fencing exercises. After a discussion that had not been pleasant, as Valerius did NOT like to be surprised by her with thing like this, she had managed to get the Nitrozian’s reluctant support. But now this seemed to have been yet another of the kind of fool’s errand everything always seemed to become as soon as Parnell was involved. New risks taken, new troublesome commitments made, a new tricky situation entered - in vain and for nothing. She was annoyed at herself. Why had she been so silly…why? “Parnell?” she said, hoping that he could hear her despite the shut door. And even more she was hoping that he would remember what he had said last evening about not being angry at her anymore, for getting him dead drunk, stealing his ledger, trying to dupe him, telling on him to Clyde Sullins, messing things up in the confrontation in the shop ... “Parnell, listen. Please put the cane away… ” Valerius Nitrozian wouldn’t like it if she wasn’t able to make Parnell deliver what Amolina had promised on behalf of the unconscious poison maker. The easiest would have been to leave. But now Amolina needed to give Valerius what she had promised him: a business minded chemist knowledgeable about poisons and with interesting proposals and ideas. She would need to at least make Parnell agree to a meeting, or else she didn’t know what would happen to her own cooperation with the Nitrozian. There was no way back. Carefully, she pushed the door slightly ajar … “Parnell ?” If she got a reasonably harmless answer from the man in the boathouse she would enter.

[Inoadar]

His mind had largely cleared from the effects of the poison, but the morning "dew" in his eyes seemed to be somewhat worse. Had he been crying in his sleep? He had rolled over to find a fuzzy lump of blankets he had assumed to be Amolina. Just then, near simultaneous sounds of footsteps and the metallic creak of the door brought him to defensive action.

The second or two it took him to find his cane allowed the door to be open, the figure there a fuzzy silhouette against the daylight. He rose in what began as a smooth practiced movement, cane converted to blowgun. Fortunately for him, whoever had been there had backpedaled behind the door, missing his dizzy slump to his knees. He didn't know if this was just a typical result of standing too quickly from a completely relaxed and prone position, or if the poisons were still hindering him physically.

He sagged further, but this time with relief, at the sound of Amolina's voice. He chuckled at the irony. This whole debacle had begun when he'd targeted her for some sort of retribution. Now, he was glad to hear her voice. Funny how things work out.

He surprised himself to find that there was no deception in his mind as he spoke up. "Amolina? It's alright, I'm sorry if I startled you. I just woke up and I thought you were still in here. I didn't know who was at the door, but you startled me as well and I assumed the worst." The door opened hesitantly and Amolina poked her head around the door. Inoadar waved the cane in his hand and laid it on the ground.

"I'm still a little disoriented, kind of nauseous, but I'm still hungry. Are you?" she came the rest of the way in, closing the door behind her. Inoadar wiped the rest of the sleep from his eyes, but his vision was still a bit off. Amolina hadn't said anything yet, but she seemed to be thinking of something that needed proper wording. He assumed it was just going to be a statement of still not completely trusting him. He found he couldn't blame her.

He took a deep breath, feeling better as he expelled it. "Look, I know you had every reason to finish me off last night. In truth, I really don't now why you didn't. But I'm not going to obsess over it. You must have had your reasons." he paused a moment, like her, weighing his approach to what he wanted to say. "I...uh...I'm not trying to claim some big epiphany or anything. I still don't think of people's lives as having some sacred value, but I don't go kiling for no reason either. Just don't go thinking that I've suddenly become a "nice guy" just because I'm not hurling threats and insults at you. I'm simply tired of trying to remember what I'm mad at you about. I decided last night to just drop the whole thing, and this morning, despite the poisons still lingering, I feel like a huge weight is off my chest."

He started to extend his hand, then paused a moment, realizing this may be asking for a bit too much trust on her part. Instead he stretched, as if that was what he had intended all along. "So what do you say? We call it even and get something to eat? Or did you have something to say first?"

[Amolina]

So he had forgiven her and wanted to call it even, but not because he found it fair and not because he was generous. No way. It was only because he had tired of wasting his time on keeping track of all her shortcomings, be angry at her and plan his vengeance. In short, he found her guilty of “all she had done” but as it bored him, he couldn’t be bothered with revenge. He had decided to drop the rage that had made him hate her, stalk her, bribe her friends to get information, threaten her with hideous things – and this made him feel like “ a big weight had fallen from his chest”. So ! He was done with it ! Now he could forget the whole thing and have breakfast ! However, this might of course make somebody like her start to imagine stupid things, like him forgiving her because of being a good guy. It might be seen as very noble of him to let her get away this easy. So he really had to warn her and point out that this wasn’t the case, lest she would be blind and think him much better than he was. She’d better not get silly ideas about trusting him or such, which he didn’t want her to do. There wasn’t anything more to say, really. It was time for breakfast. But if she had something more she figured was important to her to say first, she was allowed to speak. Feeling a bit annoyed, Amolina added this pearl of biased and self-serving reasoning her brain made of his words to her "knowledge" about him. In her mind a complex evaluation machinery was at work. It was utterly thorough and it took a multitude of details into account, analyzing and weighing them carefully, taking the measure of every tiny word and silence, action and lack of it. This process was certainly very far from the quick jumping to conclusions that Parnell seemed to imagine. “Yes Mr Parnell, let’s forget about the past” she said. “There’s a place nearby where many fishermen use to eat in the mornings before work, we can go there if you feel strong enough…but I suggest you don’t go there barefoot and with your face full of blood. I’ll get some water…” She hoped the small harbor tavern would still be open. Parnell was looking quite disheveled and slightly groggy. But he wouldn’t look out of place in that tavern…when it came to Amolina, she had of course tidied herself up briefly before speaking with Valerius, as Valerius didn’t like it when people were dirty and tousled. She grabbed a bucket and went out to get the water. When she came back she would offer to clean the blood away from his face – if he didn’t prefer to do that himself. Either way, while Parnell got this and other things done, she would tell him what was on her mind. First. She told him she took if for granted that none of them would ever mention to others what had really happened last night. She took it he too would want to keep it secret. Officially, all she knew was that she had found the poison maker badly beaten, bleeding, nearly knocked out. He had told her he had been assaulted by unknown thugs. She had made him enter the boathouse and then she didn’t knew anything more, because he had passed out. Second. She told him that she had not known that he would recover this quickly. She had believed that he could need special medical care. And a …powerful friend of hers had the means to arrange that. So she had consulted this friend, and it had turned out he had been interested in helping somebody that could be useful, and would likely be grateful. There was a business offer that might still be valid, even if Parnell didn’t need the medical care. They could speak about this in the boathouse or over a breakfast. Amolina left it to Parnell to decide where, unsure if he had meant to have breakfast with her, or if he wanted to leave and have breakfast on his own, with a great feeling of a big weight having fallen from his chest.

[Inoadar]

Her look hung just a bit too long to indicate complete acceptance of his offer at face value. It didn't surprise him, though. There was far too much history between them to toss aside on the basis of a single clearing of the air. If some representative of Nyka came to him, saying they wanted to just forget about the past, he doubted he'd feel much different.

He felt like saying that this was the very reason why he didn't give her some heartfelt apology. Because it would be so clearly lacking in sincerity. No he kept it honest. He still blamed her for the initial provocation, still didn't regret any of the horrible threats he'd apparently traumatized her with, still didn't care if she thought his actions were far worse than what might have been justified.

No, his speech was meant to be taken as is, and tough shyke if it didn't make her fell all fuzzy and warm inside. He neither liked nor disliked her. But he knew that she could have killed him and hadn't. He could have killed her as well, and hadn't. In his view, that made them even, he never said it made them friends. It had always puzzled him how women seemed unable to grasp the appreciation for a worthy adversary that allowed men to be on the verge of killing each other one moment, and patting each other on the back, buying each other drinks and laughing over the severity of the maimings they'd just inflicted on each other the next.

He shrugged mentally. There was no use trying to understand women.

His senses cleared a bit more and several things became noticeable. One, which was supported by her mention of "barefoot", was that his feet were cold. 'Why in Uphis' Ass did I take my boots off? Didn't I have something tucked in there?' He couldn't remember if, or what, he had.

When she returned with the water, he also noted a reddening lump on the side of Amolina's face. 'Maybe she really DID kill the boatman.' he thought, reaching for the bucket and the rag. He had always cared for his own wounds and didn't even realize she might have done it for him.

He set to wiping and scouring the various lacerations on his face, as she started to speak of various courses of actions, some of them common sense items, some of them expressing surprise at his resilience. But when she mentioned "powerful friends" he paused, wondering if the bruise on her face had been as prominent while she had spoken to this friend. He didn't see any reason why it wouldn't have been.

Gears began turning in his reasoning...'She sees her friend...He HAS to have noticed the bruise...She'd surely been asked to explain the bruise...If she had killed the boatman after he had failed, why should they consider him "useful"? But if this was all a plot by her and some bunch of cohorts, they must have made it a detail to be sure she came away with an injury, for appearance' sake.' Now he was truly impressed, such subtle touches were the earmark of truly professional thinking. 'It's all in the details.'

Either she was a real pro and killed the boatman herself, no small feat considering that he had failed to do so. Or she worked for the kind of group that would think things through well enough to add this touch. As an actress, such a mark on her face would keep her out of work for a while. But she allowed it anyway. Either way, she was suddenly revealing herself to be a remarkable acquaintance. She probably hadn't wanted to get into that messy business with his ledger, but had done so on orders of the Black S-...

'The Black Sun! Were they her powerful friends?' His heart started to race. When he had been turned, he'd already realized his affinity for the worship of Rhysol, but knew he had committed such deeds as to merit execution. As if to verify the glorification of chaos and power, Rhysol had accepted him anyway, treating his assaults against the god's soldiers as proof of his capability, and his long avoidance of identification and arrest as proof of his resourcefulness.

But in fairness to those that had always embraced His rule. Rhysol had not gone so far as to allow Inoadar to wear any sign of His favor. Inoadar knew he had much yet to earn. Perhaps this was to be his chance. He stood, straightening his appearance as best he could. "I certainly don't want to appear ungrateful, but I think I ought to bathe and eat before I see anyone."

He paused a moment, "Umm...if anyone asks about our injuries, just let me get indignant. If you want to let slip that we were mugged, that should work. Then I'll tell them to mind their own business. They will assume it's my stung pride at having allowed you be bruised like that. You know, me being your "protector" and having failed. In the meantime, if you know a place nearby that won't throw us out as bums...well, ME anyway, that sounds fine."

[Amolina]

Food. Yes. Food would perhaps be a good idea, she thought. Just think of the kelvics at KRI. They were always much more reasonable once they had been given the fodder. She guessed it was the same with humans, sometimes. It wouldn’t hurt to have breakfast. It would perhaps keep him in a good mood. When Parnell was ready they went out and Amolina locked the boathouse and put the key in her cloak pocket. She would go back and tidy up when she had time for it. She led the way to the simple food and drink place nearby. They continued to speak there ... Continues in a sequel a few days later ... Unexpected Business

[Abstract]

Grade Awarded!

Amolina

Skills

~ Observation - 3
~ Acting - 4
~ Persuasion - 1
~ Acrobatics - 1
~ Intelligence - 1

Lores

~ Parnell: Fortune Teller's Warning?
~ Acting: Useful for a Quick Getaway
~ Parnell: Inodar?
~ Ravok: Empty Boathouse
~ Parnell: Not Mad Anymore

Other

+ 1 Ravosala (Fake)
+ Boathouse Keys
+ 1 Dart With Dark Reaving Poison

Amonila has a bruise on her face that will last for a total of 7 days, treated or not. It turns vaguely purple after the second day.

Inodar

Skills

~ Observation - 2
~ Acting - 3
~ Stealth - 1
~ Persuasion - 2
~ Brawling - 1

Lores

~ Acting: Useful in a Quick Getaway
~ Identifying an Illegitimate Ravosalaman
~ Amolina: Not Willing to Kill
~ Ravok: Empty Boathouse
~ Amolina: Powerful Friend

Other

- 10 gm
- 1 Dart with Dark Reaving Poison

Inodar has two cracked ribs from the blow, which will heal in thirty days if treated, and wont be too much of a pain. If untreated, they will last for double the time, and be an incredible annoyance. He also has a minor concussion, which will clear in ten days.

Notes

I love how you guys spent the first page of this yelling at each other. That acting XP! Just a note, Inodar... I don't think there are any 10 miza coins... just copper mizas, silver mizas, and gold mizas ^-^

As well, you mentioned the Ravosalaman swinging the pole at you. This is kind of unrealistic, considering how freakishly long those poles are... he must be super strong to swing it like that...

Otherwise, great thread! It was kind of hard to grade at times, though the beginning was pretty funny. I'm glad the two got along... and seemingly, you have future plans, along with Valerius. Good luck with that!