Collecting the Set: The other Ex-Governor

[Cinnabar]

"While he's a man, he's also a monster." The word is used easily, simply, a statement rather than a judgement. "It's natural that he'd be fascinated by other monsters and seek their company. Kindred spirits, hm? Very old, very powerful, unconcerned with trivial human worries." No commitment to consult those files, though, no real desire to delve into such matters. That Karolinger was finally gone was all he needed to know.

He takes a moment to offer a refill for Aleksei's cup before topping up his own, a brief pause in the conversation. Time enough to consider his visitor's question. Something he'd said.

"One thing: what do you think of Glenn Burnie?" An innocuous question on the surface, but one which he's keen to hear answered. "Speak freely, it'll not leave these walls."

[BetaFlame]

He glances a the cup as it is refilled, murmuring a brief thanks as he takes another drink. He considers for a moment. He won't push Cinnabar to read those files, but he might find some of it insightful. Aeryn was dead, but Aeryn was never really Aleksei's problem. Kharnagar wearing Aeryn's skin was, and that is what Aleksei had dealt with. He had never known Aeryn at all.

"Glenn Burnie? Hm. He's interesting. Perhaps the oddest fellow I have met here, even taking Catch into account." He pauses to take another sip of the tea. He knew these two were friendly, but he did not know how deep that went. Were the work-friends? Like brothers. Aleksei was so bad at these things sometimes. "Let me say this. I respect Glenn. He is a man in a tough position. He does the best he can, I believe that." He really does. He would not continue to work for Glenn if he did not. He would have left, instead of joining in Glenn's mad crusade to better this place.

"The other side of it is, I fear he lacks a certain amount of empathy. He makes his choices based only on logic and thought, with no weight to the emotional. Sometimes I do the same, but I feel the pain of it. I do not think Glenn does, or if he does he does not feel it as deeply as he should." Lamai's words echoed in his head. Glenn has no soul.

"I count him a friend, and I will support him as best I can. As he pointed out to me once, I could make a fortune working for a noble as a scribe, but I choose to be here working for what Myrken can offer. Glenn Burnie and Agnieszka Kaczmarek are the reasons I stayed."

[Cinnabar]

The silver-haired man listens carefully, attentively, grey gaze steady upon his visitor as he speaks. If what is said is a surprise there's little indication of that shown on Calomel's features. If it confirms some of his own suppositions then that, too, is kept hidden.

Some platitudes, some qualifiers, some loaded words and some deliberately ambiguous - he does the best he can, a tough position. Respect, interesting, support him as best I can.

As deeply as he should.

Only a nod given for all that, as he sips his tea again. Apparently he's heard enough to satisfy him for now, and his manner eases a little, a touch less intensity to his gaze.

"Thank you. So, as you say, this other thing that brought you here?" He'd suspected as much, really; a man doesn't haul a hundredweight of good steel to a stranger's house just for the sake of making his acquaintance, so for him to have some initially unspoken reason for his visit is almost inevitable.

[BetaFlame]

"Well, first I had wanted to thank you for that day. I get busy and forget manners and so forth, but I try." He smiles at him and looks down at the anvil he is near, reaching over to run a hand over its familiar surface. Tools of the trade. What he would have been, was he not this. He would have preferred being a smith, honestly. At least it was labor that only ended in blood by accident.

And surely the man did not think he would spill everything he thought about Glenn right away? Somethings are held back. He wanted to make Cinnabar understand that no matter what he did, he was still working for Glenn, because he felt Glenn was on the right track.

"What brings me here will probably disturb you a bit, truthfully. There are many layers to it. I did want to meet you at some point, but what speed me along this path? I have been looking into events that were history for this area. Events that might be restarting again. Altias Bromn has returned. When he did, Catch started referring to him as 'Ser Baie'. In the interest of being proactive, I have starting researching the events of that time." He takes another drink, giving the man a moment to absorb all this.

"Just as there was the horse-shape that did not make the official reports.. is there anything you can tell me that might not be in Glenn's files?"

What a reason to be here. Altias Bromn and the Baie.

[Cinnabar]

"There's no need, really, but the steel's appreciated. I'd be a poor excuse for a human being if I hadn't stepped in, hm?" To just stand and watch a man get his brains dashed out on a table? No, that'd never do.

Then Baie, the man says, and that has Calomel's attention. Events that might be restarting, and that has him concerned. That Bromn has returned is of some interest as well.

"First of all, keep a very close eye on Bromn. The man's a lodestone for trouble, and was up to his eyeballs" Ha. "in the whole affair." Thinking back on what he knew, what he'd managed to glean from his hunt for the creature and its worshippers.

"If Glenn's shown you the files he inherited from me they're as complete as I was able to make them. Most of the events surrounding the Baie and its cult were before my time. I had to rely on the accounts of others with more direct experience." Most of the events, though not all. He'd been there for what he honestly hoped would be the end.

"I did my best at the time to root out the creature's cult - the Order of the All - and, I think, came very close. It was desperate, attempting to bargain for peace even as I had its most favoured pawn in a noose." The memory brings a frown to his features, grey gaze growing distant for long moments. When he looks back to Aleksei his eyes are cold, unblinking.

"If you encounter either of them, my advice would be to kill them and burn the bodies."

[BetaFlame]

He nods and takes another drink of the tea. Normally the man hated tea, but this was very, very mild. He enjoyed it. So far this had been among his more pleasant afternoons since he got to Myrken. Not that there had been many, honestly. But this was a good one. But the topics so far were a bit on the sour side. He just sighs and sets the tea cup down, considering.

"I assume you mean Dhrin. Somehow, I feel that man is the key to the whole sordid mess. Believe me, I let out a little groan when I found out he escaped. In my mind, he is already guilty. If I see him I will separate his head from his shoulders." He has an equally dark look to his blue eyes. Dhrin was the cause of too much pain, he was not going to allow the man to go free, and he was not going to give some monster time to come to his rescue."

"I read the recount of Bromn and his double. Okulari? Do you happen to remember.. if his eyes were a different color from Bromn's normal?"

[Cinnabar]

"Dhrin, yes. And be assured he is guilty, and not only in your mind." Absolutely firm on that point, and with good reason; a good half-dozen Constables had died during the man's escape, and that had only been the most recent bloodshed in the trail of fear and murder he'd left across Myrken Wood.

"Beheading's not enough. He's been killed several times before that and returned. So, if you do come across him then my advice is to leave no room at all for doubt. Destroy the body entirely with as hot a flame as you can manage. Even that's not necessarily a guarantee, so remain watchful for his return." And then kill him again. And again. As many times as it took.

"Bromn's stint as Okulari was well before my time, so I couldn't tell you about his eyes; I was present for the raid upon the Order's lair, but that was the first contact I had with the cult directly. Prior to that I was working from reports and witness accounts." One particular witness, though if Glenn had shared those files then Aleksei would have all the information he needed on that count. Eyes, though. Why did it always come down to eyes?

"If you have suspicions about Bromn, act on them. He's been a hapless catspaw for most of the monsters in Myrken Wood at one time or another, so more than likely you'd be right."

[BetaFlame]

Aleksei's eyes lift up to meet Cinnbar's, this time over the rim of the glasses he wears. They are cold and hard, a pair of blue ice shards. "The moment I see Dhrin, he will not survive the evening. Very few things can grow back after being soaked in acid, and I use acid for etching my steel." That was cold, but it was effective. Plus, it had not been tried. Maybe if he sealed him in it, he would not grow back. He could suffer in place of all those he had made to suffer. Dhrin deserve that and worse, and if he could Aleksei would see him pay for it.

His eyes close and he takes a deep, settling breath when he opens those eyes again, they are more normal, more sedate.

"Sorry, just that man inspires me to want to do terrible things to him. I am not normally a violent person. But some people.. they deserve it."

He runs his finger over a bit of soot on the counter, thinking. "I do not know what I suspect of Bromn, truly. I will tell you what I know. He showed up at the Dagger. He did not remember anything. His eyes were red, and he was blind. Several days later, I witnessed Lady Lamai -" he suspected Cinnabar would remember this name, "-perform something on him. When she was done, his memory had returned, all save the past year. His eyes were healed, one blue and one green. More interestingly, when his eyes were red, Catch referred to him as 'Ser Baie' and when his eyes were healed, he started calling him Ser Bromn."

He frowns a little and shakes his head, "Several days later, I met a woman, and I use the term loosely, in the Dagger. Her name is Galacia Talus Tarin Vraal. She had black eyes, and I assure you she was not woman. She was a demon in the skin of a woman. I am in a unique position to know, and I knew the moment she touched me as she grew claws to tear my throat out. I have been.. informed, that this woman is also linked to the Baie."

[Cinnabar]

"It's not a matter of deserving. Only that he is a constant danger to others, to Myrken as a whole." Quiet words in response to that icy glare, that vehemence. Deserving implies a moral judgement, and the Order of the All has demonstrated itself to be so far past morality that it has become a matter of vital necessity. "He is responsible for terrible things, and has shown himself to be so unrepentant, so capable, that he can't be allowed to go on living. For the sake of everyone else."

Putting an end to him wouldn't bring back any of those he'd killed. But it would save those he'd otherwise destroy or corrupt in the future.

"He's also a consummate liar, adept in mind-games, so capturing him with the idea of interrogation is a waste of time one might put to more productive use ending him."

Aleksei describes the strangeness of Bromn's return, blinded eyes and lost memories, and Calomel nods slowly, sipping at his tea. Mention of Lamai Carver has him glancing up, brows lifted slightly; of Galacia Tarin-Talus Vraal has him scowling again, the cup set down empty on the workbench beside him.

"Always the same names." Irritable, as if reminded of some unpleasantness that had been happily forgotten for a span. He sighs, dredging up memories he'd been content to let gather dust.

"Galacia is a witch - or a demon, though they might be the same; she's known to Myrken for a while, one of many who've used Bromn as their pawn over the years." Honestly, were their any who hadn't? Perhaps the Ashfiend, purely by virtue of the fact that the ghoul had seemed to scorn subtlety entirely.

"She can influence dreams. Thadius Dhrin and Michael Renne - the other of the Baie's chief cultists - possessed a similar capacity, so I'm not surprised there's a connection there. What had you heard?"

Something similar, maybe. Or it might simply be that the monsters of Myrken Wood cannot help but know one another, as their various schemes and depravities overlap and intertwine.

"In any case she tormented Bromn for a time, until Lamai set in place defences - stood guard over his mind as he slept? Something like that." A flick of his fingers dismisses the exact details. "It was taxing for her. The witch was - is powerful. That she's resurfaced at the same time as Bromn is probably no coincidence at all."

[BetaFlame]

He sighs and nods. Aleksei was not a great dispenser of justice, not like Cinnabar. He knew right from wrong, and had a keen sense of it. But Law and Justice? Those were not his areas. He directed his life by his gut, and too often he had seen Law used to beat down the weak, and Justice much abused. From what he he had read, those things would have been just as abhorrent to Cinnabar. But it made him shy away from those trains of thought.

"However you phrase it, the man is a plague and needs to be cured. For the betterment of all." The simplest of point they could agree on. The rest was semantics.

"Galacia. I did not learn much, but I am still digging. I suspect you know much more than. But, I have questions. Why do the Baie's actions seem so.. inconsistent? The attacks seem random, those that you cannot lay at the Order's feet that is, and the attacking of the mob. It never seems to add up. There is no motivation I can ever seem to find. That is what brings me here. Because I suspect that the Baie is not the heart of it all and is much a pawn as the rest of them. As much as pawn at Bromn, Dhrin.. Renne."

He finishes the tea and looks up at the ceiling of the place. A habit he has when he is thinking. Takes the stimulus away from his eyes and lets his mind work more properly.

"What if Galacia is not working for the Baie, and it is the other way around? Or am I late to the game finding this out?"

[Cinnabar]

Justice was a difficult concept in Myrken Wood. How could you bring to justice a monster that slew scores of innocents, or drove men mad, or had mothers offering up their own children on dark altars? How could anything put such horrors right, balance the scales? No. No, as Constable and later as Governor he'd dealt in threats - evaluation and removal thereof. If something threatens the innocent, it must be stopped, one way or another. Perhaps, if it is only a mild threat, one might be merciful - enact a punishment such that the thing learns not to repeat its error. There are certain lines, however, that are not to be crossed; certain deeds not to be tolerated, and in such cases the perpetrator is best employed as an example of consequences.

"No. He needs to be ended." Let us not mince words here, sir.

"What I know of Galacia I've just told you. The Baie, meanwhile, existed to sow uncertainty and dread - to make the population afraid, to have them cowering in their homes. Attacking unpredictably, stealing the faces of friends and neighbours - you know of that, hm? That it was a shapeshifter? All these things serve to spread fear. Because there is a certain sort of person for whom fear becomes worship. They fear a thing, so they seek to please it, in the hope of sparing themselves."

"The Baie craved worship. So it was frightening and terrible, and the fearful flocked to its cult." With Dhrin and Renne as the shepherds. Or possibly the hounds, snapping at their flock to drive them in the right direction.

"I'm... almost certain that Galacia was not working for the Baie - their methods, their approach to things diverge too greatly. The Baie is a beast - cunning, yes, dangerous, certainly. But his methods are brutish, relying on crude physical violence and given finesse only by how his servants capitalise on that. Galacia is more subtle - discreet, manipulative. She torments from the shadows, to whatever ends." Still something of a mystery, given the limited information he'd had available. "Perhaps she sows fear and uncertainty for similar reasons. Perhaps she is merely seeking amusement."

As good a guess as any. He shrugs, then, the motivations of monsters not entirely relevant to him nowadays.

"My suspicion is that these monsters, the major threats to Myrken - Galacia, the Baie, the Ashfiend, Vraal, Faeryl, the rest - simply share a gameboard. They have their own reasons, and sometimes those coincide and they might work together. They might encounter one another, grant favours - one trains the other's servants to influence dreams, for instance - but ultimately each works independently."

[BetaFlame]

He just shakes his head a little, not in disagreement, no. More in sadness. Why did people like Galacia exist? She had been human once, close enough that she felt the need to wear that skin. What drove her to these ends? What drove any creature with a spirit to the arms of evil such as that? How were she an the Baie linked? That was the most interesting question here. Where they simply two creatures playing off each other, with a cult caught in the middle?

Who knows?

"You know some of these things better than I, truly. I am just getting to this place and trying to look at things from new angles. Its entirely possible that they are not in anyway linked, except through the misfortunes of one man. But my master taught me there is no such thing as a coincidence, so I will keep digging. Its not in my nature to let go." He gives a shake of his head again, with an expression somewhere near a smirk and a smile. The last time he had failed to let go, he ended up with a monster in his head. The time before that? He ended up homeless. What would his quest for truth cost him this time?

Ashfiend. Another question that nagged at his mind. Niall had said 'What do you know of the Ashfiend?' And here it was brought up again. He hoped he would not need to know much of the monster.

"Sometimes, I think this place is caught in a circle of fate. Doomed to repeat itself over and over. I read the things of the past, and I see them start to happen.. but that is no reason to give up trying to break free of it. I will deal with Galacia, and whatever else may come of it."

He straightens then and considers for a moment. "I should let you get back to your work. But I have one question before I go. One you asked me before. What do you think of Glenn Burnie?"

[Cinnabar]

"I know what I've seen. I know about things that happened during my time here. What went on before that is harder to explore - many of those involved are now gone, and official records are scarce." For a variety of reasons, foremost being the destruction of the old Meetinghouse.

"In any case, don't send yourself mad looking for connections that don't exist. Coincidences do happen sometimes, and often in the worst of ways."

He glances to the pot as he considers a refill, but it seems that his visitor is making ready to leave. And then there's that question, his own question returned, and he can't help but offer a wry smile in acknowledgement for all that it fades before long.

"I think he's a good man. He is among my oldest and truest friends. I have not lived up to that, and he has suffered as a result. I think he does what he sees as necessary for the sake of Myrken Wood and its people. I think we'd all be in much deeper trouble if he did not."