Closed Home,Sweet Home (Kuvarakh)

[Alea Campbello]

Alea looked up at him
"Three or four I think," she said as she began to wander around the area. "I don't know why I even picked up that one" She saw a tree off in the distance and began to walk towards it. She recognized it somehow. She began circling around and then saw something black caught on one of the branches. She went up to it and yanked it off. It was a bit cloth, like the kind you would find on a cloak. She turned it over and suddenly images began to flood into her head.

"When you wake up you won't remember anything" she heard inside her head. The voice was foreign yet familiar. She saw a man's hand reach out to a black raven and begin to pull feathers from it. "Those men are evil" the voice said again, almost soothingly. Then another image of a males eyes, glowing softly. "So evil" he said "You could kill them." And another image, this time of spikes rising out of the ground and into strange men. Just as she thought the whole ordeal was over another image flooded into her head. A woman coughing blood onto grass next to a few dead bodies.

Alea woke up next to the tree convulsing and blood pouring from her mouth. She turned over and got up. She wiped the blood from and had a sudden realization. The person in the images had been there after she had woken up and found the bodies. She had turned and caught a glimpse of black next to a tree and then heard footsteps. She had just been to frantic to realise it.

[Kuvarakh]

At first, Kuvarakh began to comment on how the wind could easily explain the absence of so few feathers, but he paused halfway through as Alea began to wander, as if entranced, towards a nearby tree. She pulled a bit of dark cloth from one of the branches and stood there, staring at it. Her eyes seemed to glaze over and she clenched the shred of cloth fiercely.

Kuvarakh was apprehensive but intrigued as the Kelvic woman seemed to be tilting her head, then nodding, as if she was being given instructions by someone. He could see no one, but this had all the appearances of hypnosis. She jerked slightly a few times. He had an sudden insight that her head tilt had been bird-like, and that the twitches may have been her reaction to recalling having feathers pulled free.

She turned halfway around and Kuvarakh saw her eyes, distant and unfocused. "Alea? Can you hear me?" he asked with an air of gentle command. "What did you see? Do you recognize that cloth?"

He was just beginning to generate a djed bubble, and touch her mind with an image of a dark form. His intent was to implant the notion that this dark figure had told her to inform her current Nuit companion of what she had been told. The instant he made contact, her eyes suddenly refocused and her body tensed. She held a hand against the tree as she dropped to her knees. Then to his shock, she suddenly hunched over and began to cough up blood.

Kuvarakh froze, he took a quick look around to see if there were any suspicious characters around. Seeing no one, he hurried to Alea's side, helping her up as she wiped the blood from her mouth. "Okay, okay, stay calm, Alea. I am here. Whatever it is, it's not here now. Did you just remember something? It's that cloth, isn't it. it's triggered a memory."

He wanted very much to hear what she had to say before he used any hypnosis. This whole situation looked to be some sort of spell specifically targeting Alea. Something getting her to do something she normally couldn't or wouldn't do. He did'nt know much about glyphing or reimancy, but he suspected that a person's skill might be able to be enhanced and empowered through glyphing and the use of some body part, like a feather for instance.

As much as he wanted to help her, he had a legitimate fear that there may be some trap ingrained in her consciousness to lash out at him if he tried to use hypnosis to do it. Or maybe it was some trap to kill her if he questioned her. It did not escape his notice how her collapse had occurred the very instant he'd touched her mind with his.

[Alea Campbello]

Alea's head snapped up and she stared at Kuvarakh. She began to tell him everything she had seen.
"I remembered what had happened" She said as she finished up her story. "He's still around here somewhere" she said as she began looking. Then she thought she saw a blur of black, yes she did, a black cloak. She began to give chase through the trees , shouting back to Kuvarakh to hurry. She didn't know if he could see the man but she definitely could. She quickly climbed up a tree and began to give chase over the tree-line. She couldn't see him any longer, She stood looking about, until she was knocked flying off a tree.

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh listened with growing concern. 'She is saying that this dark figure twisted her mind into feeling justified to kill these men on his command? And that he also bolstered her ability to make it possible? And what about the three with no apparent damage, what killed them?'

He felt outrage creeping into his frame of mind. This was exactly the kind of villainy that made people everywhere so set against magic. This sort of sadistic use of djed was at perfect odds with the purpose of The Order. It was bad enough that these men had been killed, but it had been done in such a way as to inflict guilt on Alea. Guilt not only in her own self-assessment, but such as to inspire a witch-hunt attitude in the populace towards her and any others found to be djed-crafters. This 'dark figure' had to stopped.

His thoughts were interrupted by Alea's voice shouting at him to hurry. He was suddenly scrambling after her, not knowing what had occurred. Alea was insisting that the man was nearby, but he hadn't seen anyone and wasn't now exactly sure where she was. He tried to follow, but it seemed that every direction he went made her voice more faint. He was all too well aware how djed-craft could be used to mislead him. He started shouting her name.

[Alea Campbello]

Alea's eyes slowly focused on a man above her. He had his hands at his throat. He was wearing a cloak. Alea struggled to get up was getting pinned down by the man. Alea noticed a small tear on the bottom of the man's cloak. It was definitely the same man then.

She heard Kuvarakh calling her name. She thought it started to sound fainter and fainter but then she realised it was her. She was almost dead. She tried to shout back but all she got out was "Ku" before the man's hands were back on her throat.

She then got an idea. She covered the entirety of her stomach in res. He began to say something. "That man is" but Alea cut him off, she turned the res into air and pushed him away from her. He landed on his back, obviously startled. Alea quickly got up.

She climbed up a tree and began to run across the treetops. Many leaves hit her face and she soon had a red face. She glanced back and noticed the man was giving chase. She looked down and saw Kuvarakh. She jumped down and grabbed his arm.

"Run!" She screamed "Now!"

[Kuvarakh]

"Wha-...?" Kuvarakh began, stumbling off-balance from the tug on his arm. He saw her eyes focus behind him and realized his peril. "Go!" he shouted back, shoving her away. Everything he'd seen and heard here convinced him he was about to come under a hypnotic attack.

But what his attacker didn't know was that, even though he was undoubtedly a more adept hypnotist, Kuvarakh had been spending afternoons conducting his "Defense Against Hypnosis 101" class at The Order's facility in Alvadas. Already Kuvarakh perceived the expanded ambiance inherent in the touch of another man's djed awareness. If he had not been spending time trying to convey this very concept to his class, he might not have detected it even WITH the knowledge of the incoming attack.

In his program, there were four stages to defense: 'Awareness', 'Alert', 'Action' and 'Analysis'. The 'Awareness' was already there. He already knew he was being attacked. The touch of external ambiance was the 'Alert'. He had blindfolded students and had them walk past doors, some open, some closed, interspersing this with touches of his own hypnotic djed to get them to connect that subtle change in surroundings that was so similar to the touch of a hypnotist's contact. Out of doors, it was tougher to sense, but he had been focusing on it for weeks now.

He was experiencing this now, so he recognized the cue for 'Action'. Then thought better of it. This attacker had no way of knowing that he was also a hypnotist. He would expect to see his victim show signs of immediate acceptance of whatever notion he was going to implant. Kuvarakh knew if he resisted, the man may just overpower him with higher aspects of the power, and Kuvarakh was not yet experienced enough to know what shape these might take. He would have to rely on his own fourth stage, 'Analysis', to break the effect later.

Even as he guessed what sort of notions this man might try to implant in his mind, they took form. 'Look at what she did. She is evil. I was smart to trick her into showing me what was out here. Now I know what sort of monster she is. I won't let on though, I will turn her in to the Silencers back in Alvadas. For now, though, just tell her the man ran off...overgiving...yes, he was worried he'd tried too much in one day and ran off.'

It seemed he had been suspecting this ever since he'd seen that Alea had returned. That he'd always suspected that she was only looking for power to dominate others. Now she'd shown just how corrupt she'd become. He looked around, his brow furrowed at the hideous crimes Alea had commited. He looked up and saw the man in the dark cloak looking at him. They locked eyes and Kuvarakh nodded. He knew what he had to do. "She won't get away with this." he hissed, meaning every word. The dark figure smiled and turned to leave.

[Alea Campbello]

Alea grabbed Kuvarakh's arm tighter before realising that he wasn't moving. She kept moving forward, looking behind to check if Kuvarakh was following yet. Or the man. She ran for a good few meters before stripping and taking bird form.
She flew over to where Kuvarakh had been.

The cloaked man was there again. They seemed to be communicating without talking. Then she realised that the cloaked man must be using hypnotism. She almost jumped down but then stopped herself. Kuvarakh was a skilled hypnotist, surely he'd know what to do.

She let out a loud caw to let him know that she was there. If anything happened she'd be down in seconds. She watched as Kuvarakh lifted his head and said something about not getting away with something. Alea went back to where she had dropped her satchel and picked it up.

She went back and perched on a branch of a tree. She then turned back into a human and got her bow and arrows out. She drew one and aimed it directly at the cloaked man's head. He tried anything and he was as good as dead.

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh walked back the towards the direction from which he and Alea had first arrived. He had heard her cawing and tried not to be too obvious about moving past her quickly enough to force her to watch either himself or the dark cloaked man, not both at once.

He looked up at her then and called in a friendly voice, "It's alright now, Alea, he is leaving. He wanted me to tell you how sorry he was to have to use you the way he did. He saw how...powerful you were and realized he may have...inadvertently caused you to feel hostility towards him. Those men were all criminals...murderers. They got only what they...deserved."

Kuvarakh suddenly felt uneasy about his wording...it had never been his nature to make such an extreme assumption about what a man may or may not deserve before taking an active roll in meting out punishment. 'No...I didn't give out the...judgement' he decided he liked that word better. 'Alea did...yes, such harsh reprisals against men that had done nothing to her. So unlike her...but she must face the consequences of her crimes.' his thoughts went on.

He began to speak aloud again. "He had to...coax...your mind into the proper frame to do what he could not. He was on the brink of overgiving and hypnosis is not truly a battle-oriented craft. They kept breaking his concentration and he couldn't get past their...group...mind...hostility to...persuade them to surrender. They killed his family, and he needed your djed skill to bring justice down upon them...he said."

Kuvarakh's brow furrowed, 'HAD he spoken? Spoken ALOUD?' he puzzled to himself. He couldn't seem to remember...Something wasn't right. Had he been saying that what she did was right?...Or wrong?

[Tapestry]

XP Award!

Kuvarakh:

XP Award:

• +2 Socialization
• +2 Hypnotism
• +2 Investigation
• +2 Subterfuge
• +1 Intelligence

Lore:

• Kelvics: Injuries transfer between forms
• Hypnotism: Defensive technique "Awareness"

Comments :

A strange 'by the seat of your pants' kind of thread. If Alea ever returns she can PM me and I'll grade this for her. Sorry I couldn't give more. I rather like Kuvarakh's approach to defending against hypnotism...well thought out. If you feel I missed anything, let me know.

TAPESTRY