Just a bit chilly

[furtive_heroics]

A man grumbles at the cold. He always grumbles at the cold, here. Everyone does. There's no escaping it. You can wear the warmest clothing possible, sit by a roaring fire, and still the cold bites. It doesn't numb, either, you'd think that after a while you'd just go numb - no. It's not that kind of cold. The victim shivers and curses and bundles up with a thousand layers and still it's so cold that it hurts. Almost everyone here travels from tiny insufficient fire to tiny insufficient fire to insufficient and drafty bar run by a terrifying dragon, trying to stave off the cold. It never works, but it makes it slightly less torturous. And cursing and grumbling at it always helps.

He is not staying here any longer than he has to. He is not going to fucking stay here, no way. He's been through too much to languish as a sacrificial lamb in the eighth circle of hell while an archdevil goes on a rampage. Cania's for traitors. And he's not one. He was loyal until the day he - well, not died. Was banished. And he doesn't deserve to be here.

He'll find a way out. Eventually. And then someone's going to have a very bad day.

But he's not thinking about that right now. He's thinking that he's pretty sure some vital parts are going to turn blue and fall off from the cold, so he's picked the warmest of his available frigid options to try and plan his next move. He'll take the bar with the dragon. He opens the door -

...

And this is not the bar with the dragon. It's much, much warmer.

His head screams trap, but he can't bring himself to close the door and walk away. Inside he goes, shivering. Warmth.

Comments

[subtly_artistic]

"Snazzy. I don't have the coordination for it, and magic would be more my style if I didn't have the obvious advantage in subtle arts to leverage."

[furtive_heroics]

Nod. "My teacher tried to teach me a bit of magic once, as a result I can maybe read some scrolls without exploding, but casting proper spells is beyond me." Pause. "Well, mostly, I have some weirdness now that doesn't let me claim to not be magical."

[subtly_artistic]

"Oh?"

[furtive_heroics]

"Right, well, I spent a lot of time on the plane of shadows. And, uh, if you spend long enough on the plane of shadows it'll start to make you into, er, something else. So I am part human and part something else. The something else isn't murderous or anything, just - now I have perfect darkvision and can do some things with shadows. I can sort of teleport short distances, and summon a, uh, friend of mine to help me out if I need it. There's some other things, but those are a bit harder to explain."

[subtly_artistic]

"That all sounds reasonably useful."

[furtive_heroics]

"It is! I mean, mostly, looking at bright light's actually a bit uncomfortable now, and the shadow plane becomes a bit creepier when you understand some of the whispers that you can hear, and if I were to go there again and stay longer I'd start to pick up on more of the downsides so I have to stay far far away from there, even though arguably I'm at my most powerful on the plane of shadow."

[subtly_artistic]

"Makes sense."

[furtive_heroics]

"Yeah. I have - sort of weird feelings about the whole affair, but it's been very useful, so. I'm pretty okay with it now."

[subtly_artistic]

Nod, nod. "Do I want to know what the whispers say?"

[furtive_heroics]

"Depends on which part of the plane you're on. There's - nice neighborhoods and nasty neighborhoods, I suppose is the term. Sometimes it was, uh, detailed descriptions of what it's like to be at the part of the transformation where your skin starts getting peeled off like a snake skin for new shadow skin, sometimes it's creepy threatening whispers, sometimes these weird attempts to lead me into traps, sometimes genuinely trying to help me... They vary a lot."

[subtly_artistic]

"Huh. I wonder how they sort themselves."

[furtive_heroics]

"The main way I saw was groups of people that went to the shadow plane together, and then they tended to stick together and keep everyone they don't like away from their turf. Then there's an entire system with shadow lords that hold estates and control certain areas. I um. Am technically one of them. Honorary shadow lord."

[subtly_artistic]

Bella bows a little.

[furtive_heroics]

He ducks his head, embarrassed.

"Thanks," he says to the countertop. "I mostly leave the place in the hands of the aforementioned friend, he's very competent with it."

[subtly_artistic]

"What does shadow lording involve?"

[furtive_heroics]

"My first example of it was from the shadow lord I, uh, took the title from, and he had set up a tower of nefarious magical shenanigans for nefarious magics. So once I had the title, it was sort of up to me to figure out how to disentangle nefarious magic and how to take proper care of the people that weren't involved in it. And Ksxksskrth," he rattles off this name as if it's the easiest thing in the world to say, "turned out to have had opinions about the place that the previous lord hadn't listened to at all, about how to make it better and less terrible. And then I did. So we sort of worked out how to make the place run, uh, sanely, maybe class up the shadow neighborhood a bit and have pleasant creepy whispers instead of the insane magic-obsessed ones that had been there previously. That sort of thing.

"I could technically try to conquer my neighbors if I wanted to, but I really, really don't. So - kind of like a warlord, I guess? With the new warlord getting picked based off who defeated the last."

[subtly_artistic]

Nod, nod.

[furtive_heroics]

"But when I'm not on the plane of shadow it's just for sounding impressive."

[subtly_artistic]

"I'm impressed! Do I not sound impressed?"

[furtive_heroics]

"You sound very impressed," he assures. "Just, it's sort of weird to me. I don't feel like I should be in charge of anything, let alone an entire estate."

[subtly_artistic]

"Why not?"

[furtive_heroics]

"I don't feel very qualified. I - figured out a maze of shadow portals, killed the maniac in charge, this doesn't qualify me for being in charge of what he had, it means I'm good at problem solving and killing people. I have zero training or experience in managing anything and don't have any cultural context of or loyalty to the plane of shadow. I feel like there are really better people available, they just - didn't do what I did."

[subtly_artistic]

"You could've learned the stuff. But you'd have to stick around and you didn't want to do that, I guess, so at least your friend's helping."

[furtive_heroics]

"Yeah. And he is actually very good at it," he assures. "I might be tempted to stick around if he wasn't very good at it, for the sake of the estate. But it was definitely improving and becoming nice to live in. For a shadow-person. And no one can technically take over if I'm still alive and obviously in charge and just not present. They could muscle in on my territory, but it would be generally frowned upon because - tradition, something something. Fair combat and whatnot. I get the impression that Ksxksskrth would have a bit more trouble if, say, he were the lord, while he was present and easy to assassinate."

[subtly_artistic]

"Oh, that's convenient then. You're helping in absentia."