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Velvet Crowe     It hasn't been long since retreating from the Danann Highway! Velvet had, luckily, remained passed out and contained, and Samantha's had ample time to veer her ship back towards Rivernest to dump Velvet back into the guest room she's occupying at Charity's mansion.

    It's probably the sanest place to drop her, too, so she doesn't flip out upon waking up. At least, so she doesn't flip out AS violently.

    It's bad timing that would see the daemon regain consciousness as she's being carried to her room. She wrestles free from the hold, two feet of sharp steel popping out of her right bracer, the sword angling itself defensively as Velvet spins, takes a few steps back, and still dizzy, falls onto her rear rather than adopt a convincing, threatening position. At least she still has the sword arm raised up and vaguely pointed at people, while the bandaged arm makes her for forehead to highlight the sudden headache.

    "Where... ghk. Why did you STOP me?"
    She remembers! Mostly. It's kind of blurry right around the time Samantha slams her head into something and Drustan gets all up in her personal space.
Shin Tokuyama     Shin tagged along. Or he knew roughly where Charity lives from that time he came crashing through her window not too long ago. It proves convenient that he remembers. When Velvet gets dropped off, Shin is more than willing to help carry her to her room!

    Despite his own injuries (including that puncture in the side that he self-bandaged and that probably really needs stitches), he's got Velvet pretty cleanly over one of his shoulders in a Fireman Carry when she wakes up and starts wrestling free with blade gauntlet and what not.

    "Hey woah woah!"

    Shin does not have the remaining strength to stop Velvet from getting free. In fact, the act of carrying her had re-opened (if it ever closed) his side and he was slightly seeping through the bandages, his white tanktop, and the hawaiian print shirt underneath it.
Drustan Cynbel Drustan had been mostly quiet the whole trip, and it's the point where Velvet wakes up angry and her struggling visibly worses injury on Shin that the fully armoured so-called 'Darkbringer' steps in. "Lass, I ain't got a clue why she got in yer way, but I ain't lettin' ye harm one o' me allies. The lad has been kind 'nough to carry ye here, and ye will calm down while I make sure none of ye make yer wounds worse. If ye got a problem with that, I suppose I'll kill ya right now an' be done with it." His entire armour starts to glow red-hot as emphasis.

"Now, ye said yer name was Velvet, lass? I know not what yer problem with this 'Abbey' be, aside from 'em hatin' ye right back, but ye ain't goin' to get anything done if ye barge in like ye have a death wish." He lets his armour cool back down and kneels next to Shin, "An' you lad, ye need to take care o' yerself. Let me take a look at whatever bits o' ye be bleedin' so I cin get it bandaged all proper-like."
Samantha Middleton     "I stopped you because running out and murdering an entire army while most of us are beat up and too tired to back you up is dumb," Samantha answers. She's too small to carry, so she was tagging along. Outside of her armor she certainly is less threatening... being in the mid-teens and a little on the petite side, at least in height. Also a little grungy and sweaty, sad to say.
    "Sit down, I had to hit you pretty hard," she points out. "You'll have another chance to do whatever. Not my business if you want to kill the guy, but I'm not going to be a murderer for you either."
Charity Whiteheart     "Shin," Charity says, drifting in from nearby. Not literally, though. She doesn't use her powers unless she has to. "You sit down too, and get that looked at. I don't know anything but basic first aid, so I hope Drustan here can look into it."

    And as for Velvet? "It's a good thing you were stopped. You were going to kill that guy." Wasn't that the point? "Murdering your way up the ladder to kill Artorias won't really get you the vengeance you want anyway. You need to keep better control of yourself."
Velvet Crowe     Threats! This man speaks her language.

    Velvet, who can't even see straight, withdraws her blade after a moment of trying to pretend she can stare, before finally closing her eyes and keeping the bandaged hand against her forehead to rub and massage. "Velvet. Yeah. And it's not a death wish. I just don't care who I have to trample to get to Artorius. Those exorcists are so devoted to reason they're no more people than us daemons anyway," she manages, before a rumble in her voice indicates she was about to start shouting at Samantha and Charity. Apparently she chooses not to, which is a step in the right direction.

    "Fine. Time and place for everything. I get it. That woman blew the daemon into a pile of ash before I could devour it, I was angry." She still is. That's her secret! It's kind of obvious from her tone. "Just don't expect a thank you." An eye opens, to look towards Shin. "That's a lot of blood."
Shin Tokuyama     "It's barely a thing. Don't even like..." Shin waves a hand at a couple people. He was mostly playing tough so he didn't complain in front of Velvet, but since people are demanding that he actually show someone the wound, the martial artist rolls his eyes. He lifts up the tanktop (nice abs) and then turns to the side a bit.

    It's something he hastily poured rubbing alcohol on and bandaged, so it's not that hard for him to take off. There's a downside to this, though. Once he reveals the apple-sized hold in his side from an earth spike, blood immediately starts coming from it again. Those easily nauseated should not watch as it spills onto charity's nice floors, "See? It's fine. Give me a sandwich and a night's sleep and I'll be fine."

    He starts covering it back up again, turning his attention back to Velvet, "Listen. You wanna kill the guy that killed your brother, I'm all for that. Dude's a back of dicks. Fuck that guy. But I'm not gonna really be all that down with you just murdering a buncha guys doing their jobs. You know what that does? Makes more people like you. Do you want to be responsible for more people who have been through your pain and suffering because someone decided their loved one's death was a 'worthy sacrifice' to right a wrong?"
Samantha Middleton     Samantha flops down onto the floor, tugging her leg up against her other leg so she can take a look at the mechanism that is squeaking when she walks. "Yeah, I guess there's that too. But mostly I just dodn't want to be involved with that fight."
Charity Whiteheart     Charity winces at the wound, but lets Drustan take care of it right now. She's talking to Velvet right now, and has a much different take on it. "Actually, I don't really care about that mostly," she admits. "I've just learned a lot about... things. Including vengeance. You murder your way through the Abbey, everyone assumes you're a vicious monster. You finally get to him and what? Kill him? He becomes a heroic martyr to go down in history, you become the demon of legend, your brother kind of gets fucked over."

    Charity shrugs. "So. You don't really want to kill him, do you? You want vengeance, you're going to have to be a little more clever about it. You're going to have to destroy him. Turn all he's worked for against him, reveal all his bad deeds to the world, break down everything he has built and take all that is good he's made for your own."

    She pauses. "Then, I guess, if you really want to you can kill him."
Velvet Crowe     "I'm sure they knew what they were signing up for when they agreed to serve the Abbey," Velvet says, justifying it all with those simple words. What's more murder when she's already done so much?

    It's funny, though. Charity seems to be vastly overestimating how much the daemon has been planning. "No. I want to kill him. I want to be the last thing he sees when the light goes out so he realizes what he did came back for him. I don't care about the Abbey or what people think about me. I want the king, not the kingdom."

    She makes a note, though, Charity probably knows what she's talking about. And she should probably let her handle planning if her own leads fall flat. "I can deal with the aftermath if I survive." If. She doesn't sound like she cares to.

    Her eyes return to Shin again, especially as he bleeds all over the floor. "You're getting blood everywhere. It'll infect if you just leave it like that, too." Will it? Probably not given Shin's precautions, but the mess is still a concern. "Healing artes would be handy right about now."
Drustan Cynbel As soon as blood starts spilling forth, Drustan takes off his gauntlet and pulls open a bag of herbs and bandages, along with a needle. The needle quickly glows red-hot, but that heat fades relatively quickly, some kind of highly conductive materials. Then, he takes a thread made out of a strange fiber and uses that to roughly sew the wound shut, some of the herbs in it. "This ain't gonna last more 'an two days, yer gonna need t'see a proper doctor, but it'll tide ye over an' make sure ye don't get any worse." Unfortunately, Drustan's medical knowledge is somewhere on the level of a battlefield medic, not an actual doctor. It'll do for now.

That taken care of, Drustan looks up. "Aye, lass. I know about wantin' revenge, about wantin' to set thin's right, but ye ain't gettin' yers if ye let yer heart make yer every decision. Yer brain is there fer a reason." Drustan answers Velvet calmly, "Pick yer battles, how would killin' 'em have gotten ye any closer to killin' the scoundrel yer after?"
Velvet Crowe     Drustan is handling the wound. That actually looks kind of painful. Velvet's suddenly glad she regenerates when she eats things. Won't have to deal with this kind of messy healing if she can help it.

    "Don't know. Power vacuum in the Abbey, maybe? Would have made me stronger? Would have thrown them off for a while? All I know is, it would have been one less person in my way. Whole bunch of people, actually," Velvet quickly answers Drustan, still sitting on the ground. "I'm a daemon, besides. My heart's in charge now. That's how it works." She's not really questioned the fact she's somewhat more sensible than the average daemon. Actually, she's accepted her condition pretty much entirely. Maybe it's because it helps her sleep to think that's just her nature now.
Shin Tokuyama     Credit to Shin, he actually doesn't make much noise and sits pretty still when Drustan begins to sew herbs shut inside his open wound. One of his eyes twitches a bit and he visibly tenses, but he's a pretty good patient considering the lack of anesthetic. Eventually, he looks towards Drustan and Velvet and then waves his hand, "Infection, Schminfection. Night's sleep and a potroast will fix this right up."

    He then slowly stretches and shambles his way over towards Velvet. He hardly looks all that threatening as he approaches her. He stares her right in the eyes, "You're a coward." Shin tells her point blank. It's the Protagonist Truth Bomb Gamble. Will it pay off? Shin's going to double down on it.

    "You're doing exactly what he did. You're making excuses to hide behind and justify your actions. 'It's okay if I kill them, they knew what they signed up for'. 'I'm a daemon, not a human, so it's fine if I do this'." Shin narrows his eyes and then adds a single final line:

    "You're no better than the person you're trying to stop. You two might as well be the same person if this is how you plan to act."
Samantha Middleton     Woah. WOAH! What kind of people has Samantha gotten mixed up with? Kind of brutal and ruthless? No, not exactly. Just very pragmantic? The girl twists her leg a little, then scoots to the side away from the blood pooling. "I know it's kind of stupid coming from me, but you probably should think about your future a little," Sam points out.
    Still, Drustan has the best point aside from Shin's brutal attack! "If you can't think it through, let your friends do it for you. I mean... some of us are kind of okay at thinking. Miss Whiteheart seems to have some um... thoughts. And Shin's right, too. You can't just mow through everyone to get to him. I have someone to kill, too, but I'm not going to burn down an orphanage to get to her."
Charity Whiteheart     The fact that Velvet didn't have any plan like that is... shocking for Charity. She stares in fact. "Wait... you spent years rotting in that place and you didn't device a top ten list of best ways to make your tormentor suffer? I think you need to adjust your priorities."

    As brutal as that may seem, Charity gestures at the other points made. "And they're right. You'll probably make things harder on yourself. They have Paladin backing now... we can't just rush in or we'll fail anyway. Also, you can't just go harming innocents, or even people duped into being the bad guy. Soemtimes it's unavoidable, but this isn't a war."
Velvet Crowe     Does Shin have a point? The narrative says yes. The narrative says he's completely correct. Unfortunately, Velvet does not think like that entirely.

    "Don't you DARE compare me to him! It's his fault I'm this way to begin with!" She's hiding, really. Lying to everyone. Especially herself. "It's not like I'm enjoying this. It's not like I -want- to kill. It's that I have to. Those people won't back down from hunting me until I kill them, and they won't let me get to Artorius while they can still stand. There aren't five ways to reach him. Just the one."

    Samantha and Charity team up again. Velvet is having difficulty containing that desire to just lash out. "I'm not going to burn down an orphanage. I'm willing to cross the line when I have to, not go all-in. Besides, I didn't have any contact with the outside in there. You think the daemons they fed me knew much about what was going on? I didn't even know about Artorius' position and how much the Abbey changed the world until I got out. They were keeping me in the dark. All I could think about was getting out, and killing him. Simple."

    She takes a few moments to breathe and calm herself, before simply 'agreeing' in her own way. "I'll find a way to get to him and only him if it'll shut you up. That's the only future I care about though. I don't have a home to go back to. Family'll be out of the picture too once I--" She stops. Why does she stop? "Nevermind. I'll figure it out if I don't die killing him. I'm not making any more promises."
Drustan Cynbel After the sewing is done, Shin might notice it actually reduces the pain some. One of the herbs in the mixture is an anasthetic, not a great one, but it's better than nothing. Drustan listens to Velvet talk, and he takes his helmet off and reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder, in an attempt to steady her. Of course, the fact that he's close to a foot taller than him makes this a little awkward.

"Lass. Th'pain is natural, an' wantin' te kill the man who betrayed ye, it's natural too, but mindlessly killin' anyone who gets in yer way won't do any for either of those." He sounds like he is far too familiar with the feeling, "Ye gotta find out where th' son o'pyrite is vulnerable, what 'e wants, an' make a plan. Yer far more likely to kill 'im if ye do that than if ye keep chargin' into battles jes' because the troops be loyal to 'im."
Shin Tokuyama     "Awesome. Perfect. Issue resolved."

    Shin gives her a thumbs up and starts to limp out of the room, "I'm gonna go to my room and change and have a nap."

    Shin hoists his backpack up over his shoulder and then waves to everyone. He then walks out the door, about 10 feet to the left, enters the guest room next to Velvet's, and shuts the door with a click.

    Shin lives here now???
Charity Whiteheart     CHarity nods somberly, and is about to say more... when it hits her what Shin just said. And did. She leaps to her feet. "SHIN! I TOLD you-" She sputters... then gets a smirk.

    "Look, just don't pull the second unmarked book on the third shelf off the bookcase, okay?"
Shin Tokuyama     Shin shouts through the wall that he and Velvet share, "BOOKS ARE FOR LOSERS. ALSO DINNER IS IN FOUR HOURS."
Velvet Crowe     A thoughtful pause as Drustan shares his viewpoint. If nothing else, at least Velvet can say she landed in a crowd that mostly seems to know where she's coming from, even if they don't seem to get her entirely. Because that's clearly the problem here.

    "Maybe. But if exorcists attack me, I'm not going to pull my punches either. I need to get stronger, and devouring's how I do it." That and training.

    Velvet gives a glance towards Charity as Shin makes his leave, perking a brow up. "'s there a secret tunnel under my room too? Why do you even have those?"
Samantha Middleton     "You wanna get stronger, that's fine. You want to defend yourself I guess that's fine too. Just um... stop going on rampages?" Samantha points out. "... yeah that sounded a little weird, do you really have a secret tunnel in there?"
Charity Whiteheart     Siigh. "Thank you, Drustan, for patching him up. I'll get someone in here to clean up the blood, Velvet." Charity flops into a seat. "I'm really not used to being in this position, but if you need any help planning, I do have some experience in this."

    Oh, the tunnels. "There aren't any. No secret tunnels from the guest rooms. But I know a little about how Shin thinks... just a little, though. And besides, if he thinks there's one in his room it will make it harder for him to stumble onto the actual secret entrance and probably break something in the hidden base."
Velvet Crowe     "Yeah but WHY do you have... you know what, nevermind, I bet I don't want to know," Velvet finally settles on, before moving towards her bed. She doesn't usually seek rest, but she thinks she could go for a few hours right about now. Clear that headache up.

    "Oh. Found this on one of the traders' bodies, by the way." Before she forgets, she digs into the tattered pockets of her coat. She's pretty sure she put that thing in one of them-- there it is. Looks like a poster? It's bloodied and torn, but you can still make out what it's about.

    Some sort of big celebration in Loegres. This Sunday? And it clearly says the Abbey's leader will be there, though further details are obscured by the fact the trader who carried that piece of paper ran into daemons.

    "Might be my shot at making this a clean kill. Either way, it'll mean we know where Artorius is for sure. You don't have to come if you don't want to, but I'm going." She's not sure HOW she'll get in the city yet, but she'll figure something out.