Posts by marcola

The crossing over the Turlow Mountains had been pleasant enough, though Jannik would loathe to admit that he had become unused to travel. He had stayed in the court of King Vendel of Brugge until the monarch died, dispatching the monsters that cropped up in the small kingdom and for the most part being a bodyguard or the royals. His father would have a few choice words to say if he found out that was what his child surprise had been doing for just over a decade. In doing so, however, the witcher had gotten to know quite a few nobles – in other words, he had found many clients who would pay very well for their monster-related problems to be resolved. After announcing his intentions to sell the estate that had been bought for him and leave the capital city, one Lord Vesend had approached him for help with a curse. Witchers could lift curses, he told the noble, but it wasn't something they usually specialised in. The minor noble was just happy that Jan had heard him out and agreed to look into the matter. A curse on a family was certainly something novel, something more interesting than tracking down a monster, so Jannik figured it was just the thing to get him back into the business of itinerant witchering.

From what he had been told, the noble's estate was settled between the Turlow Mountains and the Yaruga river. A pleasant place to live if Jan was to say as he rode over the last foothills and saw the estate and neighbouring town spread out in the valley below. According to Lord Vesend, there was nothing but trouble here, as all among his family were driven mad by the curse. The witcher had agreed to meet the noble here to discuss the matter in more detail, and so in truth had no idea what awaited him when he got there. The estate was grand and sprawling and from what he could tell as he rode in through the gates, the place was built to mimic old elven styles, or perhaps built atop elven ruins like Kaer Seren was.

His first night there showed nothing unusual, though he was not permitted much free reign of the place. Lord Vesend had taken the trade road round through Dillingen and was only expected to arrive the day after, so much of Jan's time was spent tending to his horse and equipment, ensuring that his armour was fully repaired. He suspected he would not need it in the initial meeting with the noble, but if he had learned anything in his time as a witcher, preparation for a hunt was best done in advance.

The next morning, he heard a servant enter his quarters before he heard their voice, just as he had heard the heavy iron gates of the estate swing open before he had heard the carriage draw in front of the manor just after dawn. “Master Witcher, Lord Vesend will be in the main hall shortly. The steward had me lay out some attire for you that would be suitable for a meeting.” the servant announced, and after little more than a grunt from the witcher in response, continued speaking. “Alright, if you need anything I'll be outside your quarters to take you down to the main hall.” she said, then scurrying out of the room. Jannik was not hurried in getting ready for the meeting, wearing the green doublet that had been laid out for him he likely did not look like a witcher. He did keep his boots, though, no sense in him wearing pompous looking shoes for some lordling. When he was lead to the main hall he did see Lord Vesend, a young lord with light hair and beard and clearly someone fond of the finer things in life, but he also caught a glimpse of someone unfamiliar, someone with the feel of magic about them.

(Not my best post but I always find starting a thread hard. If you need me to change some stuff or have suggestions for me to add more just let me know!!)

His walk down to the main hall with the serving girl proved uneventful, though he did gain a few scraps of useful information. The Lord's sister was locked in her chambers, reportedly gone insane before she could marry. Their father had gone the same way, and their grandfather before him, though far later in life. It was Lord Vesend's greatest fear to succumb to such madness, which was why as soon as he was able he hired the best help he could get for such a problem. That explained the sorceress. Jan heard her words before he truded into the room. 'Spare no detail' she said, it sounded awfully like something he would say to a client and he respected that, though he was wary of sorcerers and sorceresses in general. They threw out plenty of falsehoods to hide ulterior motives as far as his experiences had gone.

As far as witchers went, the School of the Griffin was the most well versed in magic. Still, compared to a sorceress, his knowledge was but a drop in the ocean of magical lore. The noble soon justified his presence here however, making friends with noble families hadn't been in vain it seemed. "Sir Jannik is here because he is a friend of the Kingdom and has proven himself worthy many times over." Lord Vesend assured the sorceress, apparently also having a healthy respect for her and wishing for her to stay and take on the case. Either Vesend personally knew her as well, or had no backbone to speak of and was a doormat to powerful strangers. The witcher didn't care much for the answer to that, though there was a slight appreciation of the fact the noble hadn't dismissed him entirely. "A witcher is no less than a sorcerer, we simply have slightly different skills. If this curse were caused by a wraith, would you know how to dispatch of it, perchance?" he retorted, his cat-like eyes fixing upon the sorceress.

She was attractive, certainly, but so were all sorceresses. They used magic to stay that way to his knowledge, there was no telling the age of magic users reliably. The court witch of Brugge's king had been almost three hundred, yet looked not a day over thirty. From this had stemmed his own personal mantra, 'all sorcerers are not as they seem'. Was it hypocritical of him to think as such? Considering he was almost ninety, probably, but at least witchers were easy to spot - cat eyes and two swords were hard to miss.

Vesend seemed to not want to allow the tension to simmer for much longer, as he interrupted with a hopeful "So you will take the job? I will pay handsomely, four hundred orens each and a letter of recommendation for the next court you attend". The noble stood there wringing his hands, twisting the ruby ring on his middle finger. Madness scared him alright, he was sweating at the prospect of having scared both the sorceress and witcher away by not notifying them of each other. With a shrug and a roll of his eyes, Jannik nodded an affirmation. "I'll do it. Try at least, since we don't know what causes it yet." he responded, glancing to the woman to await her word. Whether he did this job alone or not, he would have to suck it up and trudge through as four hundred gold was nothing to scoff at. That much could get him to Novigrad without having to take another job, and there were always good jobs in big cities.

( That's totally fine, just write as much as you can!! I have bunches of muse for Cad, so my posts will probably be on the longer side. I'm making it sunset/night already for convenience so that we can keep the rp moving. Perhaps after Cad temporarily solves the portal problem, he could ask Amasa where the old king was buried & they can have a bit of interaction concerning him? Just brainstorming scene ideas, feel free to add onto them/suggest other things. )

Apparently, he had been mistaken about the time of day. Being so used to darkness had made mere torchlight seem like daylight that he had winced against at first, now his eyes were adjusting to the light. Beyond the doorway, the weather was clouded, almost foggy, and a sliver of a crescent moon lit the land where torches did not. A faint, sickly green glow reflected from the clouds above could only be the magical disturbance these people spoke of. Cadfael's fear of daylight had been well founded, given that when he tried to draw the blinds back to look out of his tower shortly after his transformation, the right side of his face had burned horrifically. Over time, his face regenerated to the way it used to be, save for patch of red discolouration under his right eye. That too would fade eventually, though he could not say when.

As much as he hated to be pushed around and told what to do like some dog on a leash, it seemed that he had little other choice. His first tentative steps out of the tower door were unsure, as if awaiting some kind of pain or a barrier to be thrown up before him, though that weakness quickly gave way to an assured and confident stride only a powerful mage could have. Little did those around him know, such a posture and stride was very much a false impression of the turmoil that was Cadfael's thoughts, but give that he didn't know his own standing here the vampire wasn't about to allow himself to be taken advantage of. The bag of runestones clutched in one hand, he followed after the king, intending to get more information out of him than the ominous drivel the people had spouted so far. He would like to know at least a little about what he was coming up against before he was to stand before it, though he didn't have high hopes of getting any very useful information since nobody seemed well versed in the arcane arts here.

"I will help you, it seems I have no choice, and you have no-one else to turn to." the mage declared, as if it really needed to be said. "But are there truly no others who practice magic here? Was there no replacement called for upon my- my death? I mean, how did you get any kind of arcane education?" he asked, rapid-fire questions paused only since he felt he knew the answer to the last one, and broken up by a slight stumbling over his words as Cadfael mentioned his own demise. He trusted to king and his guards to lead the way, and hopefully the vampire would be able to at least temporarily solve whatever problem now plagued the kingdom. That would secure his place here for now, at least, and perhaps then he could educate the king on matters he clearly knew nothing about.

It amused Jannik to know that he could rile the blonde woman up, that he had any kind of ability to push her buttons in a most infuriating way. He was less enthused when she too agreed to take the job. Seemed it would be too easy to hope she would leave at the thought of working with another, especially with that kind of money on the line. That kind of money could get him the finest toussaintois wine, or some rare spices from Zerrikania. It could also get him some masterfully crafted weapons if he were more practically inclined. He always was a little fanciful in his wants, he dreamed of what he would be were he not a witcher, of what wealth he could have had as a famed Skelligan Jarl. It was a sore spot for him - where he came from, who he considered his family, what he planned for his future. He didn't want to walk the path until his death, if he was quite frank, but no witcher before him had escaped that fate as far as he knew. Jannik could only hope he would be the first witcher to die in his own bed.

With affirmative answers from both the sorceress and the witcher, Vesend perked up a little, noticeably more content with his choices now that neither of his guests had lashed out as he was expecting. Though now came the daunting task of explaining this whole predicament he found himself in. "Well, where to start..." the noble said with a small shaking of his head, accompanied by a pause in his speech as he considered how to tell his story. "My family has been cursed, I believe. Almost all go mad before they reach their thirtieth winter, there are few exceptions. We've called upon the most famed doctors and herbalists, even a few healing mages, but to no avail. My father was the oldest to go in the history of the curse, reached almost forty. I think my sister's madness sent him over the edge and to his death. I would rather not meet the same fate." he explained, beginning to pace after that phrase. Jannik could only think that the idea of going mad made the man nervous, as it would with anyone.

"My grandfather was the first to go mad, and perhaps not so coincidentally, his father was a common mercenary who married the noble family's only heir. I have tried to conduct my own research into the state of the Von Karbens -my great-grandmother's family who owned the land previous- and came up with nothing but old legends about them taking the land from the elves. I knew they were old, but not that old. The crypt still stands in the gardens, if you'd like a look, and if it was the elves that did it there are ruins in the hills north of here that none dare enter." the noble explained, coming to a standstill in front of his guests but not ceasing movement completely, twisting the ring about his finger to abate his nerves. "Then there's the local herbalist who worked with my family's madness in the early years. Old as the land is wide, that one. He's by the port in town, in the only shop along there with plants in the windows. Aside from that, I'm not sure there's anything I can tell you, unless you have further questions?" he asked, apparently content with what information he had given. Jannik had been following the thread of this story, and it seemed to him that the herbalist or the crypt would be the most likely first stop - close by geographically, and even a witcher was more likely to believe recent evidence than age-old legends about angry elves, though the ruins would be worth a visit too. Just to rule out the possibility of ancient magic. After all, if the only cases were after a commoner had married into the noble family, it was most likely some other noble obsessed with keeping bloodlines pure.

Conjecture and theorising was best saved for later, however, for now he did have one question. "Your sister, is she still alive? Would we be able to see her?" the witcher asked, jumping in to ask his question before the sorceress could. Lord Vesend stiffened up then, and Jan could tell just by his body language that this would be a negative answer. "Concerning that, my only stipulation for this quest of yours is that other members of my family are to be left alone. They deserve peace, I'm the one who summoned you, not they." Vesend said, the tone in his voice unusually insistent and strangely defensive. Jan wondered why he had said 'other family members' and not 'my sister'. Had others in his family survived long? Perhaps they had not gone mad, which would grant a helpful insight into the terms of the curse. Clearly the man standing before him would not be so helpful on the matter, so perhaps that was something to ask the herbalist? "Anything else?" the noble asked, and since Jan could think of nothing he grunted and shook his head, allowing the sorceress time to ask whatever questions she wished.