Some Distant Shore [Open]

[Chariot]

"Mine is an ill-fated house."

Lord Peter Brand stared down the length of the dining hall, his thin, pale face hanging slack. He was wasting away and no amount of fine, plush clothing could hide it: a gaunt man of forty who could have passed for almost twice that, a skeleton in lord's silks. A large silver pin at his neck bore the symbol of his house: two crows perched on branches on both sides of a fir tree. He picked up the glass by his right hand and took a sip before continuing.

"It has always been this way. Misfortune finds each of us, every son who sits at the head of this table. Do you know our history, Mr. Roche?"

The fox-faced man, seated several chairs down from the Lord, shook his head.

"Unfortunately not, Lord Peter."

Brand sniffed, setting his glass back down on the table. By Roche's guess it was the same cup he'd been working on for the past hour.

"I am the thirteenth of my line, second of my name. My father, Lord Edward, passed away twenty years ago in his bed from disease. Before him, his father and my grandfather, Lord Bruce, died similarly: in his sickbed, in this house. My grandfather's father, Lord James, was slain in battle and his father, Colbrick...he died from disease."

Brand made a sour face and threw back the last of his wine. He tossed the empty golden cup onto the  table heedlessly, rolling it through a decomposing forest of half-eaten meals.

"I can tell you the name of every Lord of this house going back to the first. I can tell you how they lived and I can tell you how they died. It is expected of me, Roche; it is demanded of me. Demanded because we value loyalty above all, and to uphold tradition...it is loyalty to the past. To those who came before.

"I understand that, Lord Brand...and I'd be the first to agree with you on how important tradition can be. But I don't think that I follow. Death by disease isn't exactly unusual."

"No, it isn't, is it?" Peter's mannequin face stretched into a ghoulish smile. His gums had begun to pull back from his teeth and the flesh inside his mouth was fading from red to pale pink. "But it is still our tradition, Roche. We die in battle or in bed, and always at our appointed hour."

Brand stood suddenly, his chair clattering on the stone floor behind him.

"Come on," he said, "I'll walk you to your room."

The sorcerer pushed back from the old wooden table carefully and stood up. He was a few inches taller  than his host, and the heavy coat he wore – cardinal red with a crest of golden fur around the neck and chest – made him seem three times the size. His long, pale hair draped down over his shoulders, mixing with the mane so that he seemed almost leonine himself.

"I'd appreciate it, Lord Peter. I can't seem to figure this house out yet," he said, eyes narrowing slightly.

"I'm not surprised," the Lord said dryly, brushing past Roche and waving for him to follow, "she moves in the night. Hightower coils upon herself and rearranges, you know. Like a snake."

"Is that...a fact?" There was an uncertain pause while the sorcerer spoke, his eyes darting from the back of his host to the many doors and darkened alcoves that ringed the old dining hall.

"Hrnh," he snorted, "no. Probably not, but it's what my father told me when I was young. That houses are as alive as you and me, and that they can move and dream like any man. He would have some of the guards try and scare me by moving things around when I wasn't looking, blocking off doors with hanging rugs or bookcases, things like that."

"Sounds elaborate."

"It was elaborate. Only I think he stopped thinking of it as a joke once he fell ill...and I guess I did too. I wasn't very old when he died, you understand," said Peter, wrenching open a thick wooden door with some effort and leading Roche deeper into the house. "No, I wasn't very old at all; hardly a man. I watched him sicken, lose all his strength. He'd sit in his room all day, surrounded by old meals and old books. By night he'd walk the house with his butler, Horace – dead now too; he hardly outlived my father – knocking on the walls, dragging things around, speaking to nobody."

The hall they had wandered into was lined with high windows. Roche could see his room at the far end, the green door lit by the setting sun.

"He went mad as he was eaten up, Roche. As his father before him did; as all our fathers have done before us who lacked the good fortune to die on the end of another man's sword. It is our curse, now my curse...and soon to be the curse of my son, Antony. It won't be long at all, I think...a week at most, probably less. I can see it coming now, Roche – like a landslide down a black mountain, distant but closing and just...unstoppable."

He smiled as he prophesized his own death, labored breath wheezing through the graveyard of his mouth.

"And that's why you asked me here," the fox-faced man muttered, half to his host and half to himself. His eyes were clouded now, not resting on Peter's slumped back but staring out from across some distant shore. 

"Because of what you are. Because all my other options have failed, and I...would not like for my son to see me as I saw my father. To live his next twenty years knowing what will happen as the end."

"I'll see what I can do," muttered Roche, trying to move around Peter and into his room, his mind elsewhere. The Lord's hand gripped at his arm with a strength he found surprising, snapping him back into the present.

"See that you do, devil summoner. Whatever you need, whatever it takes, see that you do."

There was fire in Brand's eyes, and something else – Roche could see a man on the edge, staring down at a fall that would never, ever stop. He knew in that moment that Peter Brand was a man that would drag anyone and anything down with him so that he did not take that fall alone.

A long, tense moment later and Peter let go. Roche shook his arm lightly and smoothed out the sleeve where the thin man's claws had rumpled it.

"And I said I would. Now...your party tonight."

"My damn birthday party," muttered the Lord darkly.

"Your damn birthday party. How is this going to affect me? I might need to look around."

"Go where you want to go, see what you want to see...only don't let anyone see you doing what you have to do. The guards are loyal and the guests are not, but none of them will abide the kind of solutions that men like us might understand are necessary."

"Understood. Tonight, then, Lord Peter."

"Tonight, Mr. Roche. Goodbye."

(tl;dr: Lord Peter Brand is having a party to celebrate his birthday and I'm sure everything will be fine. If you're interested in joining I don't mind at all, so long as you have a good reason for being there - either let me know so we can figure something out or hop right in and we'll make it work.)

[Chariot]

(Oops, error.)

[Chariot]

The fox-faced man wrenched the deadbolt  on the door to his bedroom closed in a slow, grinding drag. The green painted wood was swollen fat in the heat of the afternoon but with some effort he was able to force it shut with a final click. Stepping toward the bed he shrugged off his coat and tossed it over the pillows. He was already breaking out in a sweat from the cooked air in the little room.

He wore a plain black  shirt, sleeves cut short and the neck cut low. Dozens of charms, amulets and necklaces  hung from his neck in a tangle of tarnished metal and weathered  stone, shielding him better than most armor might have.  He rattled as he walked  to the basin in the corner -  just a little stone bowl of water on a stand with a small mirror stationed above - and dipped his hands inside, splashing the contents up across his chest and face.

Peter Brand: what an asshole. What a presumptuous, long-winded, stupid skeleton of a man. Roche's arm still throbbed where the Lord had grabbed it; his pale skin was pink and tender from the dying man's grasp. Those hands were stronger than Roche would have thought, under the circumstances, but not strong enough to wrestle with his family's curse for much longer. And a man in that position, a man facing an eternity of screaming in the darkness,  had the gall to threaten him?

He caught sight of his face in the mirror - blue eyes hard and narrow, mouth twisted in an ugly and uncommon snarl - and forced himself calm. How long had it been since anyone worth anything had made the kind of threats he couldn't easily answer? People had more respect - and more fear - when they knew who and what he represented. Nybal Roche, Inquisitor and the Wizard of Virgo. Or was it Ulysses, emissary of the kingfisher? Which struck greater terror in the hearts of men?

Certainly not Nybal Roche, two-bit sorcerer. Nybal Roche, a man so poor he'd had to sleep with the horses last week. Nybal Roche, fallen from favor and fallen from sight, who was stuck  in a backwater manor in a backwater nation  looking for the smallest scraps of talent.

The cool water and cooling air were soothing him: he stepped backward and flopped gratefully onto the bed. It was dusty but plush and he felt like he could sink forever into a world of stuffed feathers. A soft breeze from outside came through the  shuttered windows, playing across his sweaty skin, and he found it hard to keep his eyes open.

Tonight, the party - Brand's last big hurrah before the sudden stop. He'd asked for freedom of the house, but he didn't even know what to look for...at least, not yet. There was something here, he could tell that much, but it was like looking at a statue under a cloth: you knew the shape of what you would find, but the details were hidden.  The trick was to figure out what you could, make some educated guesses, then tear the damn thing away and hope for the best. Because curses had barbs, and they were likely as not to rip a life to pieces in their removal.

He wormed himself deeper in the  downy mattress as the cooling air dried the sweat on his back away. There was a tickle as the breeze kissed him again and he smiled contently.

What to do, then? Walk the length of Hightower, knocking on walls and listening for an answer, as had Lord Edward? Maybe corner some of the other magicians Peter had hired before and see what they had learned? And of course there was always...

He realized with a start that he was cold. The breeze coming through the shutters was damp and chill and alive. He rolled over, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, and kicked aside a mound of leafy vines. The wooden floor and yellowed plaster walls had entirely disappeared under the wild growth: ferns and flowers and trees which he had no names for covered every inch of the little chamber, transforming it into a forest. Half-melted piles of snow hid in the shadows of the bristled branches. The bed was the last island of normalcy in the spring woods, and even that was in the  process of being overtaken. He could hear birds - strange things with alien songs - crying in the near distance.

"Blessings be, my Lord Ulysses."

Her voice was low and scratchy, the kind a torch singer would've loved to have. Every word was a suggestion and his name a promise. He couldn't see her, not yet, but he could feel her presence - in the space behind the trees and under the roots of new growth.

"You're  not who I was expecting," he said lamely. His eyes darted around the growing forest - stretching now well beyond the limits of the little  room in Hightower - seeking her out.

"I'm not? Then do I disappoint you? Would you like me better if I were great and terrible to behold? If I came to you in a form less pleasing?"

"No: I didn't mean it that way. You're fine the way you are. More than fine." Her voice was teasing, but he knew how quickly the temper of something like his visitor could change.

"Glad that it is so, my Lord. I've come to you with a gift from our master."

"Which one of them?" he asked, groping for his heavy coat and throwing it over his shoulders. He could already see his breath beginning to mist.

Her laughter was the rustle of full branches in the wind.

"Does it really matter?"

"No," he shook his head, "not especially."

"Attend me, then: the answer to your problem is of this house but not within this house. A presence grows fat here, coil upon coil, hidden from sight.  There is a door here that is used twice in the life of every Lord Brand: once opened, once shut. Find it and you'll find your solution."

"Is this a literal door, or...?" he asked without much hope for an answer.

"I think that depends on how you look at things, my Lord."

"Ah."

"And my Lord?" Her voice was close now - a whisper of cold air in his ear.

"Yes?"

"He told me to tell you: try not to lose this gift, too." He felt the weight of something fill his hand: something rough and damp and unhewn. 

He woke up.

The room was as it had been: too warm, too dry, too dim, too cramped. But the weight in his hand, the wet feel of living wood and something more, promised that his dreams were  something more.

[Brisinger987]

Xerordir had been haunting Peter Brand for some time before he had hired Nybal to cure him. Obviously that meant that Peter Brand was close enough to death to see Xerordir, and he felt obliged to be the bearer of bad news to Nybal Roche, the one who was putting in vain effort.

So he had sat in the corner of the room, his scythe blade a shimmering line in the darkness and the red, glowing orbs shining a red gloom in the corner.

And that was where he sat for the majority of the day, invisible to those who passed around. The room may have been small, but thieves knew that, and the only ward on this room was the reaper, who had frightened them away today.

"Soooooon..." His voice would carry, but only Peter Brand would hear the reaper, and the sound would draw him. Xerordir felt like being evil today. A conversation with the reaper before he dies might be fun. No details. Just a haunting, one sided conversation between reaper and reaped.

Xerordir, for all the guests of this room however, would be a presence in the corner of their eye, something they think they saw, but only in the tiniest fraction of a second, and something that if they looked at him in the right way, would cause all men to flee in fear.

The next few words were for Nybal, words pleading for attention from the wizard.

"Look to me, Nybal Roche, ye of vain effort..." His words contained commands only Nybal's subconscious would hear, commanding him to look directly at the reaper. Whether Nybal was strong enough to resist was a different question.

"I can get closer to him every hour. His death is near approaching. You need to work fast." The reaper, in the darkness of the room, was nearly concealed to Nybal's view, barring the glowing eyes and the scythe blade.

[Anadwen]

Inch after inch, he pulled himself higher. The estate had some sturdy, hard walls, but it was nothing he couldn't surpass - if only his bag wouldn't be hitting him into the hip with the heavy weight of a big stone every time he moved even a little, and streams of sweat weren't running into his eyes.

Dammit. Accursed tower.

And yet Grian climbed higher. The prize at the window was too amazing to just let it pass... Oh, the gold and the jewels, old books and other shenanigans he could sell for enough money to reserve all of the Randy Peach for himself for a night! That sure sounded beautiful to him.

The window. Finally. He pulled himself up and onto the windowsill like a cat...

And almost fell right off. There was a skeleton inside the room, the reaper himself patiently waiting in the corner! And he was hanging from the window... A nice few feet off the ground.

That thing had flaming eyes, and - all gods which he always mocked help him - a scythe. A real big scythe.

A freaking huge scythe! I am so, so, so f***ed... Grian emitted a low growl as he reached with one hand higher, trying to grab onto something his gloved fingers wouldn't keep slipping off. If he only didn't have that stupid heavy bag and those gloves, he'd make a hole in the windowsill with his very fingers and climb up with ease.

The discomfort now was more than great. He, however, resisted the urge to let a cat's tail and claws spring out of himself, and launch himself up into the room. It would leave him too weak to fight that strange creature in the case of an emergency...

It must have been waiting for him. It must have. For the past five years... Was this supposed to be the day of his death?

[Scheherazade]

[The Previous Day]

"... You are my last hope!"

Lord Gregory Brand was the youngest, the only, and soon to be the last son of the ill-fated noble house of Brand. The boy was unnaturally tall with a gaunt face and long limbs that brought mental images of a ghost to mind. He was not an unhandsome man but his appearance was no doubt unique and whatever woman he took as his wife in the future would have to grow fond of him over time or not at all.

By all accounts the house of Brand was a noble house in name only. There had been a time long ago during the war that they had been a mighty house of warriors but that time was far gone. Their mansion was falling apart, most of their guards retirees earning extra money for their families or invalids, and they could barely afford to keep guests. Gregory and his father Peter were well known throughout the local village for their stubborn adherence to honor despite tough times and a dark curse hanging overhead, such that even the local merchant's guilds did little to recant the mountain of debt that they were owed by the family.

But once the last Brand died everything they owned would fall into the hands of waiting wolves of that there was no doubt.

Yet when Gregory Brand stared at Yue Xie Bao with his deep sunken eyes she saw the light of a warrior burning fiercely in his eyes. The boy was pompous ass who glorified himself even when he was talking about the curse that would eventually steal his life, painting himself as some kind of tragic hero. But somewhere in the back of his mind the noble mentality still lurked, just as it had in his father and his father's father before him, burning in his blood and defiant to the last moment. It was romantic in a way; if only Gregory hadn't been drunk.

"I see, that's quite the tale you've spun me..." Yue couldn't help but wrinkle her nose up in disgust as the stench of liquor reached out for her and turned her head ever so slightly to the side.

"My apologies, sister!" Gregory shot back, a look of horror on his face as he finally realized just how close he'd been, and immediately prostrated himself across the floor with such speed that Yue was almost worried he'd broken his nose. "I didn't mean to come to you in such a state but I am desperate, my father is dying of that there is no mistake."

"He refuses to sit and wait for it but I would like to guarantee that he at least has some dignity in his final moments. A dignity he will not have if the damnable demon lord robs him of everything that he has left!"

Gregory's cohorts, a ragtag trio of yes-men who had accompanied him on the meeting tried their best to pry him off of the dirty street only to find him violently shoving them off. They were in the center of town where Yue Xie Bao had seen fit to set up shop, a simple tent made of colorful fabric and a number of strange trinkets hovering about to help accentuate the atmosphere. It was so cheap that the act couldn't even be called third-rate but it was the frightening accuracy of her readings that kept the money coming in.

"Hey now, is that any way for the son of a nobleman to act?" Yue snapped with a click of her tongue. She had arrived in this town only days ago and already they were beginning to wear on her nerves, "I am just a humble wanderer, not some holy woman."

"You read me like an open book, just like they said you would. You read my mind, my past, and my future without me saying a word!" Gregory protested, his eyes growing wide with fear, the fear that she might abandon him in his hour of need.

It's true that Yue had done all of that and more but the majority of that had been nothing more than clever postulation. It was really little more than her own overactive imagination cultivated from eighteen years of reading fanciful novels and a pile of rumors from the local nature spirits that fueled her fortunes. His own inflated sense of self-worth had filled in the blanks and accepted everything she said without a word of protest.

But even her untrained nose could smell it on him. Even more pertinent than the stench of liquor and sweat that beaded off of the young man, the smell of foul magic burned at her nostrils. He was definitely cursed, perhaps even more so than he knew.

"Let me finish. I said, I'm not a holy woman, but!" she held one hand out, pressing her finger firmly into Gregory's lips and silencing him like his parents should have "Your plight is real, that much I can tell. I will give you all of the help that I can; I will put my own life on the line to do battle with the demons that plague your family."

"For a price..."

"Oh thank you, sister! You won't regret this, with your skills you'll definitely trounce that bastard and put an end to his plot. The bards will sing of this day, I assure you. I would give you everything I own as long as you put an end to that fox-faced devil." That went on for several more minutes, Yue doing her best to calm him down even as the young lord came near to tears, until he was finally dragged to his feet "I shall see you tomorrow then, no earlier, I want that bastard to be surprised when I walk through the door with a champion of my own!"

He finally ambled off, or was rather dragged off, insisting on waving and calling to her until they finally turned the corner several blocks later. With a roll of her eyes she sagged into the cushion that acted as her seat and ignored the chattering crowd that had gathered.

"Well, it looks like you've got a date." A tiny voice chirped from the corner of the tent, "You're growing up so fast."

"Oy," she said, exhausted from the exchange, "Shut up."

***

[The Present]

Yue Xie Bao arrived at the front of the Brand Manor and Hightower, it's rusty old gate guarded by two proud local men in absolutely ill-fitting armor carrying halberds they had no idea how to use. One of her stipulations had been that young Gregory set her up at the local inn, the nice one, and so she had a good night's rest and a nice meal for what was no doubt going to be another routine exorcism. Sleep still lingered on the edge of her senses and she found herself giving a yawn while waiting.

"Good to see you made it, sister." There was a loud creek at the gate as Gregory came out to meet her.

He was sober now and wearing his finest uniform, a military one though he had surely never served in anything beyond the local militia himself, and he wore it with pride. There was a distinct blush on his face as he refused to make eye contact and tried his best not to remember the moment of weakness of yesterday. His cohorts flagged out behind him with stoic looks of determination on their eyes.

"Thank you, my lord." Yue made a slight bow. "I can't say I've ever been to a party like this but something tells me that you're guests have never seen something like what I'm about to do either."

Yue Xie Bao was in no way dressed for the occasion. She was pretty enough with her fae descended features so long as one was willing to overlook her ragtag outfit. Her long blue travelers coat had been cleaned for this night but its edges were still frayed and the slight fading of the threads from overuse could not be hidden. Most of the women stuttered about on heels and she clomped through the garden in thick boots, the loud jingling of her sounding staff upon her back echoing her every movement. Clipped to her left hip was a small lantern sized cage and jostling about inside of it was a very unhappy looking baby turtle.

"Oh, this is nothing I assure you." Gregory responded with his nose turned up. "Come now, we'll enter through the back door. I want to make sure that we catch that bastard with his pants down."

"You never did tell me his name." Yue perked up an eyebrow, wondering if any one man could be as vile as Gregory had described the supposed demon lord with the fox face.

"Ah, yes. I suppose that the devil would have to use a name when he assumed human form." Gregory clicked his fingers together in thoughts, "I believe it was Nybal Roche."

[Chariot]

Roche rolled over off of his stomach and, folding his legs under him, scooted until his back was against the wall. He'd started to sweat again already. The mysterious stranger and her spring forest otherworld had only briefly cooled the sweltering Hightower chamber. The cramped room was once again baking in the heat of the afternoon.

He relaxed his hand and stared down at the green lady's gift: a rough cross of two sticks bound together with dried vines. Two words in a language he didn't know were written on either arm and the bottom had been carved to a sharp point. The whole thing was no larger than the palm of his hand and was still very damp.

Don't lose this gift too, she'd said. He unclasped one of his many charm necklaces and bound the wooden cross with care between a small iron wheel and a warm cube the size of his fingernail. He draped the chain back around his neck and adjusted it until it meshed again with the  others. He had so many: near a hundred just around his neck, to say nothing of rings and bangles and others stranger still. Talismans brought to him from wherever men had traveled...and many places that they had not.

He combed his fingers through the tangle of fetishes like he was stroking a dog's fur and smiled. Some were magic - strong magic, too - and some were paste crystals stuck on pig iron; he didn't much care either way, because it was the belief that made them most potent. The faith they created in their power and in his own. He became more than a man; he was avatar to the Magician, clothed in red and questing from some distant shore...

Roche felt a tingle go up his spine and he froze, daydreams melting away. Someone was watching him - he was sure of it. He hadn't had time to ward his chamber before meeting with Lord Peter, but several his amulets were pulsing, screaming like mystic alarms to warn of an intruder nearby. Had Brand set someone to keep watch over him? To make sure he lived up to his end of the bargain? To make sure he didn't steal off into the night with all the good linens? He muttered under his breath, words of power in a strange tongue, channeling force through his –

THWACK.

For the second time in as many minutes his concentration was broken; this time by the wild flapping of the window's shutters...which he was more than sure had been closed when he'd lain down. Maybe it was another gift from his visitor? It didn't really seem like the kind of thing the green lady – or most of her breed, for that matter – would do, but...well, they were all strange in their own ways. Sweeping his eyes across the little chamber – and lingering for a moment on a dusty wooden chair in the corner – he snatched his heavy leather pouch of possessions from the floor beside his bed and stepped out of the room. As he shut the door he laid a hand on the frame and breathed a ward into the wood, so that he would know if Lord Peter was too curious for his own good.

Now...he had a party to attend and a curse to break.

[Scheherazade]

"Apologies my lady. It appears as though I am needed elsewhere," Gregory offered Yue her an awkward bow along with an awkward apology. Until the opportunity to out the fox-faced man was ripe they had stationed themselves within the kitchen, which had been cramped and hot before it had become loiter central, "One of the guards swears he saw someone sneaking in uninvited. It's a busy day and they are old men so I'm sure it was their imagination and nothing else, but it requires my attention nonetheless."

That had been several minutes ago and Yue had spent the rest of the time in the kitchen, which much like the rest of High Tower was in a state of barely disguised disrepair. Still the chef took his work seriously and even though his assistants were little more than untrained local teens trying to earn a few coins he yelled at them as though they were trained professionals. Yue relentlessly picked at his food no matter how many times he wailed in her direction and the constant threats to cook her pet turtle were beginning to sound less like jest and more like a promise.

She ate like a camel preparing for a long drought. Not even bothering to smell or savor what amounted to a high-class feast and even kept her chews to a bare minimum. Who knew when Yue would encounter another noble in desperate need of her gifts after all. But she was beginning to feel full, an awkward an unpleasant sensation for her, and the chef's rage had switched into an intimidating seething silence.

'It wasn't that good anyways,' she fired off a mental jab before sliding off the counter she had made her seat. She headed out the door without so much as another word and the whole kitchen heaved a big sigh of relief when they could no longer hear her steps. At least until the chef went back to his loud and angry ways.

Yue was here to do a job and as reluctant as she was to be in the mansion she was also eager to find this so called fox-faced man and to see if he lived up all of the rumors that had built up around him. She rounded the corners and walked the long way around the compound, doing her best to avoid the main hall and dodging away every time she caught sight of a someone better dress than she was.

As it turns out that wasn't a tall order. The mansion was a dreary lonely thing, ten empty rooms waited for every living soul she had come across and the whispering of the wind was ever present. Yue's resolve had been steeled through years of isolation and even she could not discount the oppressive atmosphere. Try as she might to navigate the maze that was High Tower Manor everything she though she knew was imperceptibly wrong. Where there had once been a dead end stood an open hallway, pictures repeated themselves in every hallway, and yet for all the paths leading her onward she had made little to no progress.

Nothing remained constant beyond the lingering stench of a curse that had soaked every inch of High Tower.

So far there had been no man with a fox face. She was quite certain that a man with an animal's head would be easy to spot from any angle and yet they all seemed like the most normal humans in the world. A little over dressed for the occasion maybe but no mutants. Never once had it occurred to her that people could describe one another like animals without being literal.

Just when she was about to give up and return to the kitchen she rounded a corner and smacked straight into one of the guests. He was a dandy; even she knew that, a man who by all appearances had never drawn the blade he wore at his hip. He was also smaller and quite possibly even more lithe than she; it was a wonder he hadn't crumbled like a sack full of potatoes when she crashed him into him.

"Ack!" she stumbled back and found her back pressed against a door that hadn't been there a moment later, "My apologies. I didn't think anyone else would get as lost as me..."

[Anadwen]

With a soft thud, Grian finally managed to climb onto the windowsill, where he sat perched like a giant cat for a moment, gazing at the interior. He stopped caring much for who could see him, and only cared about whatever money could be inside - or artifacts. If someone would get into his way, he'd slit their throat and cut their corpse to more pieces than what one can count on all of his fingers.

And he got quite the spectacular view. The reaper creature was still sitting inside, but now, instead of avoiding it, he faced it, staring right into its... Face? If it had a face, that is. His turquoise eyes glimmered as he did so. Whatever this was, if it could die, it would die soon.

Grian Aidu wasn't afraid of death. It was a rather ordinary and everyday part of his life. The death of others, that is. He found destruction enjoyable.