2017-04-10: Strength Will Tell
- Log: Strength Will Tell
- Cast: Kahm Yugh, K.K.
- Where: Sult Ruins
- Date: April 10th, 2017
- Summary: Kahm arrives at the Sult Ruins by nightside to perform a preliminary investigation only to find a mysterious traveler with strange dress, stranger speech, and a foreboding curiosity on the nature of law and authority. Who is this armored figure, and from which faraway land do they hail?
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
The designs of the ancients could seem strange, opaque, and even downright incongruous at times. The curious entrance of the Sult Mines fell somewhere within the latter, earning a brief quandary from Captain Kahm E. Yugh of what they could possibly have meant to accomplish with such grotesque architecture before turning to the ever-present task of his duty.
The Sult Mines were one of several major ruins near Adlehyde that had been identified as a potential source of major relics in a preliminary scouting report. Although he wasn't about to investigate the mine by his lonesome, Kahm found it worthwhile to take a preliminary investigation of the outside and initial interior to better prepare a future task force to properly delve into the place. The Adlehyde Kingdom could have extracted the materials for their 'festival' from any number of these sites, and taking a look themselves could give them a better idea of what to expect..
Although he hadn't quite planned to check the site out under the cover of darkness, a longer ferry ride than had been expected left Kahm with little choice. At the least, he figured it would have less chance of him running into any unwanted attention as his last daytime sojourn had.
Even so, the Gebler officer maintained the general appearance and manner of his alias, Marcus Rider, eschewing the black-gray uniform of his rank for a wide-brimmed hat, vest, and pair of boots. He did use some more advance technology to assist in his scouting, namely a small flashlight that illuminated his way as he made it up the rocky path to the mine's entrance. Standing at the precipice, he kept his free hand at the ready for a weapon in case any of the nocturnal fauna decided to make a go at him, shining the light down the carved entrances gullet with a peering eye.
On a night like this, you almost expected the darkness to stare back.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Filgaia is a dangerous land. Perhaps Ignas especially so, outside the perpetually ravaged and mysterious landscapes of Elru. To forge through its treacherous paths and crumbling ruins alone, one must be either suicidal or possess the confidence and capacity to brave their rigors. Or perhaps simply the resources. Regardless, even when one takes all the precautions in the world, even when they do not plan to delve too deeply...
... there's always the chance of the unknown appearing when they least expect it.
So it is, that when 'Marcus Rider' arrives at the Sult Ruins, it is utterly abandoned -- not Drifter nor shiftier sorts to be found. The absolute quiet that settles over this place is either eerie or contented, depending on one's outlook -- not even the breeze rustles a wayward path through here as the chill of night sinks in. He is almost assuredly alone. He was almost assuredly alone.
But when he shines his light through that darkness-encrusted gaping maw that both invites and warns, -something- stares back.
Kahm Yugh is no longer alone.
It is the glare of polished metal reflecting light that might first catch his notice. The flashlight illuminates the sight of -something- dressed in heavy, concealing armor made of perfectly pristine white metal. A figure -- a knight -- in pure white, with nothing else to otherwise identify who or what they might be. Facing away from Kahm, the knight seems to simply be... staring. Staring, at one of the walls at the very depths of Sult Ruins' entrance, one gauntlet-covered hand lifting to scrape clawed fingers against its dirt-and-dust encrusted surface. In their other hand? A curved short sword. The gleam of something crimson on it is barely visible.
Presumably - hopefully - it is the blood of monsters. But it doesn't make the way that featureless white mask turns to stare directly at Kahm as that light shines upon them any less unnatural. Or any less foreboding.
For now, the knight says nothing. They just stare. As if questioning the very purpose of Kahm's presence here, alone, without weighing in a single word.
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
Upon reflection, Kahm might later think there was something odd about the pristine silence that had accompanied him as he made his way to the mine's entrance. Though noted for it's lull in human activity, the night was good as the day for a whole bevy of other creatures that called Filgaia home, and there was neither sound nor trace of one of them.
It had not weighed particularly on Kahm's mind...not until the illumination of his flashlight drifted from unassuming stone walls to an unremitting, faceless visage of burnished metal and a bloodied blade.
Kahm was a man of stern training and discipline. Even in darkness, even in such a foreboding environment, he was not a person given to fear. Yet he can't prevent a brief half-step backwards-the flashlight going wild-a breath before his hand instinctively held the hilt of his sword in it's grip, ready to draw at a moment's notice.
It was a moment, but a moment was enough of a failure for the Captain to curse himself over as he calmed spike in his heartrate and slowly, knowingly drew the flashlight back on the covered knight's presence. He...she...it was facing him now, but saying nothing. A drifter, or...?
Kahm does not break the silence at first, uncertain just how many heartbeats pass before he suspects that shining a light directly in the other's face was doing little good, and pointed the flashlight over the side. The moon chose the fortuitously come out from behind passing clouds at the moment, lending enough lunar light that he saw fit to dim the object, letting his eyes adjust.
"It's rather late in the hour for a dig." He said at last, hand still on the pommel of his blade, albeit a touch more relax, "And a lone one, at that." His eyes squinted. That choice of dress was....unusual, to say the least.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Silence reigns -- and while Kahm's initial instinct is to go for the pommel of his sword, the white knight makes no obvious move to aggress; they barely even budge even in the midst of that draw-ready stance the man before them takes up. They do not grip onto that curved blade any tighter...
... but it does not make its presence any less than a real and present danger in the world of Filgaia.
And yet, that armored figure barely so much as budges as the light once more shines on them. Handfuls of seconds pass without so much of a word passed between either of them, and yet if the knight is troubled by this, it's difficult to tell from behind that featureless white faceplate, or the calm yet imposingly unyielding way in which they carry themselves. They merely stare into that light until it is directed away -- until finally, Kahm Yugh's words cut through the thick layers of quiet settled over the ruins.
It's rather late in the hour for a dig.
"Dig?"
That voice is tinny, reverborating through layers of protection that make it sound unnatural and indistinct all at the same time, making just what lies beneath that armor all the more unclear. Yet, there is the faint undertone of curiosity behind that neutrality that grips it -- which, accompanied with the slow cant of that helmet-clad head to the right, gives an unsettlingly inquisitive presence to the armored figure.
"I came to observe your past," the finally answer, even if cryptically. "... And yet I find evidence of the present within. Clinging to the scraps of what once was -- is this what you call 'digging'?"
It seems a strangely sincere question even if no less odd for it; it is abandoned shortly after it's posed, however, as the knight's metal-encased fingers fall from the aging stone of Sult's entrance.
"One might wonder the same of you. Monsters make their dwelling in the night. To come here alone requires boldness," a pause settles only briefly after, "or recklessness." Once more, their head cants. Once more, they ask so terribly directly,
"You hold your blade now like the bold might, yet fell towards it like the reckless. Which are you?"
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
One would think that the beginning of conversation might bring some relief to the initial tension Kahm felt upon finding the armored figure in such a place, but the other's voice brought him no relief. Something about the figure's voice was off, made all the more unsettling that his light had offered no hint of flesh to be seen behind the gaps of that armor, which he might swear were hollow if he could not perceptive discern an imposing 'weight' to the figure's slight movements.
If nothing else, the stranger seemed male, though even that seemed an uncertain assessment that might be influence by the imposing sense their dress and voice seemed to offer.
"My past?" The Captain asked, raising an eyebrow in uncertainty of the other's meaning. The term seemed lost on them....a foreigner then, of some sort. There was something genuine in the question that he could not mistake for mere mockery, or playing the fool.
When the knight turns that inquisitive nature upon him, however, Kahm exchanged his ruminating visage for a more customary frown. "I am well aware of the dangers these lands hold at night." He said, not particularly by way of answering. He looked at his blade when the figure inquired of it, and decided he had no taste for the stranger's choice of options, "I'll go with cautious. Perhaps you've heard of term, too." He replied, the clipped neutrality of his voice fading into a growing authority.
"Who are you?" He asked, eyes narrowing, "You don't speak like someone from Adlehyde, or Aveh for that matter. Not even Kislev."
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Cautious, he says. Authority bleeds into his voice like it was second nature rearing its head as the confusion dwindles.
"Cautious. I see."
For all the metallic neutrality of that voice, it carries with it a weight of someone that was assessing every word uttered -- as if the question itself was some test to be evaluated. The white knight says nothing more on that subject, as if content to have gathered a measure of Kahm from his response. Instead, they turn fully towards the Gebler Captain. They take a single step forward. Their sword hand lifts with a certain, perhaps intentional suddenness, just swift enough that it could be misconceived as a threat--
--before that blade crumbles away into fragments of light, falling from their grasp into dissipating embers that look like momentary fireflies in the night air.
"K.K.," they ultimately answer, tone level and direct, "will do. I hail from no kingdom you speak of; I am what you would call a Geohound, from faraway lands." That attention of the knight's focuses solely on Kahm as they begin to stride forward fearlessly out of the ruins, the metallic ringing of their footfalls echoing throughout that cavernous maw of an entrance.
"You carry authority in your voice like one wears its badge upon their breast. Do you speak for the law of this land?"
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
There was another moment of poised tension, of muscles instinctively coiled and prepared to release at the suggestion of threat laid in the swing of the figure's blade, only to relent as the weapon-curiously-dissipated into what appeared to be motes of light. Kahm ruminated darkly upon the suggestion of such abilities...to conjure a weapon seemingly from nothing was not unknown, but it was a skill he'd thought unique those who were able to use ethers.
And ether users outside of Solaris...well, they boded grim tidings, of nothing else.
The man named himself, for the Kahm decided K.K. was a man in that moment, if only for his own convenience, and his explanation was at least forthright enough to satisfy the Gebler captain's demand. Geohound was a vaguely familiar term, one he understood to mean 'mercenary', more or less. It suggested the Aquvy region, if he recalled correct, of which Kahm knew little of despite the length of his deployment to the surface. Solaris applied a softer touch in that region of Filgaia...for now.
"In certain matters, yes." He said, finding a certain focus necessary when answering the man's questions. He had no words to describe it, but it was almost as if the truth uncharacteristically wanted to leap out of his throat before he spoke his name, "...I am Marcus Rider, of the Smith & Luio Company." He stepped back a bit to create a more comfortable space between him and the white knight as the other came into the open air, "It is a...group based in one the countries I named, Aveh. On occasion, we are discharged to enforce the law where it might not otherwise reach, such as capturing fugitives."
Kahm was not sure why he was being so helpful, but it also didn't cost him anything to admit this...and he might learn about this strange traveler. "I came here to investigate on another matter...a private one." He said, leaving it at that and turning his eye to K.K.'s unreadable mask, "I did not think to find someone else here so late."
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
Those heavy footfalls carry K.K. with a single-minded purpose that seems to suffuse their entire bearing. One that seems ill-fitted towards brooking anything less than absolute certainty. No explanation is provided towards the nature of their weapon, or just where it might have dissapeared to, or been conjured from; for the knight, the motions simply seem to be as natural as breathing.
Eventually, though, their stride comes to a stop; by the time that Kahm has provided his answer, the armored figure is only a few feet away. From so close, it's still not entirely easy to identify the white knight -- if they are a man, they seem of average height at best, a fact belied only by how ineffably they compose themselves. Hands clasping with a steely din, their head cocks to the left.
'In certain matters, yes.'
They listen to that explanation. Enforcing the law where it might not otherwise reach. That faceless mask tilts upward, to stare at the sky in a gesture that might be contemplative if there was any way to gauge facial cues from the... whatever the knight is.
"So your authority is not absolute."
It seems less a question than a statement of fact, as direct and to the point as the tone itself. "Marcus Rider, of Smith & Luio Company, then. Well met." That faceless plate once more falls to focus on 'Marcus,' the weight of a stare that cannot be seen behind it. He explains why he is here, in his own, vague terms. "A private matter unrelated to your nation's needs," they muse, in quiet contemplation. "So you have come here in search of satisfying your own desires, then." And as Kahm's focus falls back upon the knight with that thoughtful observation, K.K.'s answer is a simple one:
"I came here in search of my own desires. To see, and to decide."
Perhaps not much of an answer, but it's one K.K., at least, doesn't dwell on; the words are soon followed by a question, thoughtful and layered in that same, direct neutrality that rings through the tinny din of their voice.
"Tell me, Marcus Rider, of Smith & Luio -- if your law has lands it cannot reach, what good is the law?
"On whose authority do you speak, in a land where your authority fails to breach?"
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
'So your authority is not absolute.'
Kahm mentally twisted under K.K.'s statement, but he supposed it was a true one for the explanation he was given. The stranger was looking in the wrong place if he wanted absolute authority.
'Or perhaps not.' Kahm thought ruefully as the other fellow's gaze turned briefly skyward. "A client's desires." He said, correcting K.K.'s conclusions, "Though in my profession, the desires of a client are as good as my own."
It seemed the right answer for 'Marcus Rider' to provide, a man who's commitment and sense of duty did not deviate terribly from Kahm's own. Indeed, there was precious little to separate the two identities from one another beyond the name he had provided. Regardless, one vague answer seemed to beget another as the exchange between he and the armored man continued. He wondered, exactly, just what those desires might be...the desire to ask increasingly abstract questions, perhaps?
"I..." His lips twisted, and it was with some frustration that Kahm realized the alias he constructed was not nearly so thorough as to withstand this mysterious man's line of question. A name and a convenient excuse, that's all 'Marcus Rider' was, and had ever been. How much, really, did he even want to defend a fabrication's purpose from a foreigner's prying curiosity?
Still, something about not trying sat poorly in the Captain's stomach. "Even if it does not reach all lands, the law still has meaning to those who live where it holds." He said, dwelling more deeply on the question, "And the authority invested in me empowers me to act, regardless of where I am. Strength will tell who prevails, in the end."
In this last sentiment, Kahm's emphasis was pure. This, at the least, he truly believed.
<Pose Tracker> K.K. has posed.
For all they seem prone to them, perhaps infuriating vagaries truly are K.K.'s personal calling. And yet, their aim doesn't seem to be to annoy for annoyance's sake, if the confident directness of their tone is to believe.
And maybe that just makes it worse.
But when those two questions are posed, the answer to them seem all the knight is interested in. There is a weight of expectation in their tone, in their stance -- as if they were placing some invisible value on whatever Kahm might say next. Whatever little separates 'Marcus Rider' and the Gebler Captain is beyond K.K.'s knowing -- they simply question the very man himself.
"Law has no meaning to the lawless," is K.K.'s response, crisp and immediate, to that first response. "There is only one authority that has true meaning in this land and any other."
But just what they believe that is, the armored figure does not seem fit to say. Instead, K.K. seems to pause at what Kahm says next. There is a sincerity there that was not, perhaps, as present before, and that turns the featureless face of the knight back upon the Captain.
"'The authority invested in you, empowers you'..."
Those echoed words linger ponderously in the cool night air before silence overtakes the space between the two completely. It lingers for a long and perhaps tense moment...
... and then K.K. starts to move again.
"Very well, Marcus Rider of Smith & Luio," says the knight, cool and aloof as they walk with every intention of striding past Kahm completely. No opinion weighed upon the man's purer sentiment -- no indication of just what K.K. thinks of that answer. The knight simply commits to their calm, purposeful stride.
"See to your client's desires. I have seen what I needed to see." Of this place or of Kahm, K.K. doesn't specify as they gradually seem to meld into the encroaching darkness untouched by the silvery moonlight.
"I've no doubt we shall meet again."
... and eventually, disappear. With no sign or evidence that the knight had ever been there at all -- save for the eerily tranquil silence that dominates Sult Ruins once more.
<Pose Tracker> Kahm Yugh has posed.
It's interesting. When K.K. first spoke of absolute authority, Kahm had thought to suggest he find a priest, with the full weight of his dismissal of the question behind it. He thought it better not be so antagonistic however, only for the armored man to go ahead and invoke the unspoken undercurrent to the question even as he seemed to casually dismiss his response.
The Captain crossed his arms, eyes drifting overheard towards the moon. "Only one authority, hm?" He asked, feeling his shoulders sag in mild exasperation, "I suppose you're talking about God."
But K.K. gave no affirmative answer, allowing the silence between the two to stew with a growing sense of discomfort. This time it was the stranger who cut the silence, speaking with the same surety that seemed to infuse the stride that carried him past the Captain and into the cradle of darkness that grew beyond the periphery of sight.
For a moment Kahm considered demanding K.K. stop and answer further questions, but the words never left his mouth. For one, he was not entirely sure the mysterious figure would listen to him, and he did have another task to accomplish. Even then, he could not say he didn't prefer to be rid of the stranger's ominous presence.
Not that his parting words were anything to find comfort in.
I've no doubt we shall meet again.
The words seems to echo still in the air even after Kahm had lost sight of the man's armored form, as if carried on gentle wind that now blew across the mine's entrance, the buzzing and cracks of nocturnal life seeming to re-assert themselves in the wake of K.K.'s departure.
"...Neither do I." Kahm said, a touch more darkly than he expected, his head turning back towards the entrance of the Sult Mines, left with none for company but the riddles of the ancients.