rancorasael

[rancorasael]

Asael's defensiveness was warranted, a new danger seemed to rear its head before he'd had a chance to recover from the last. The moment he heard crashing in the lower level of his palace, he approached the source carefully with a quaterstaff outstretched in front of him. He was ready to attack the intruder, weaves swirling around the object to form a weapon at its end. He was more reckless than most and had all the strength he needed to defend his home, but between the damage and the moving shadows Asael became afflicted by terror. "A lot. You weren't quiet." In that moment, he was too scared to do anything but stare at the frightening visage of someone stronger than him. His grip on his staff tightened out of frustration. "If you're gonna wreck the place, just do it. Don't be half-assed about it," Asael said, a slight bite to his tone for reasons he wasn't entirely sure of. Fear? Envy? Worry? It was never straightforward with Isak, which made his next words as he lowered his weapon that much more surprising. "Are we … are we going somewhere else? I like it here."

Person: @rancorasael Location: The Apartment, Eterna Note: sorry u saw me crash out do you still think im hot

He has half of the place overturned before reality kicks in and reminds him that there is another being in his proximity. Whatever had been on the table before the couch was gone, scattered on the floor, a cup from earlier shattered on the rug, the actual table itself upturned. An end table and the lamp atop it, the pillows on the couch, books, all on the floor. Shadowy crows swept over the room, cawing and flapping and it's the sound of Asael's heartbeat behind him that has him standing stock still there in the living room, his back to the witch. The crows dissipate the way they do, sink into the shadows in the corners of the room. "How much did you see?" He asks without turning around to look at the owner of the approaching footsteps.

[rancorasael]

[rancorasael]

who?: @dejatheeinnkeeper , @vuldak-juneau , and/or @agnesisolda where?: the stumble inn when?: progress day

Asael hadn't done this kind of manual labor in a while, but he really didn't think he'd gotten that much stronger. His strength training must've been paying off because this was the fourth broom he'd accidentally broken since the Progress Day crowds began pouring in. Sure, one could blame his bubbling rage that had been stilled years prior when he first started taking odd jobs in the lower city, but Asael would say that his thick forearms essentially turned the brooms that he pushed across the floor into twigs beneath his grip. "Dammit, I need another one," he barked as he threw the splintered broom into a nearby closet with the other cracked failures too weak to be weileded by him. "All these people staying here keep making a mess, so I'm gonna need some stronger brooms if I have to keep cleaning like this. Go find me another."

[rancorasael]

Asael was too focused on pouring every ounce of his strength into tackling Isak to hear his wordy critique, not that it would've helped much anyway. For all the normal words Isak used, "solar plexus" would've only incited the witch's rage. Solar plexus? What the fuck was that? He really got annoyed when Isak made up words to confuse him.

Unfortunately, the upper limit of Asael's strength far outweighed his body's capacity to handle the strain. He had more to put into his assaults than he could manage and had to yield before long. Huffing and red-faced, he released Isak and rolled over onto his back, defeated that the doctor didn't seem to move at all. "Shut up. The only strategy I need is good ol' Plan T: take 'em by storm. You're lucky I don't want to kill you."

He was incapable of admitting defeat even in failure. No one knew what he needed better than him, and discipline sounded a lot like getting bossed around. "Plus, I can't use my magic inside. My palace is nice. Don't wanna wreck it too bad," he mutters to add, groaning as he pressed the back of his arm to his forehead and caught his breath. Asael's aches flared up, but they'd return to their tolerable levels shortly he was certain. "Can't beat clergymen to death with strategy. Need strength for that, quack. I swear I'm strong."

He braces himself for the blow and it comes quicker than he'd expected, causing him to lean back just a bit but still remain remotely unbudged. What's worse is Asael doesn't lighten up, he's grabbing at whatever space he can to further be able to give him the leverage to lay him out on the floor. Had Isak been a mere mortal man, he was certain that Asael would have toppled him, he can say that much. There's a lot of force being exerted, and in a way, he does feel bad for....Playing with him? He'd known the witch's attempts would be fruitless and yet he'd entertained the idea anyways, knowing this would be the outcome. That definitely wasn't in the bedside manner handbook he'd been reading. "You can't just use strength. There's strategy to it. Sitting down, you have a better chance getting your arms around just under my ribcage as opposed to my waist. If my lungs worked you'd have a better shot at knocking the wind out of via my solar plexus." He's speaking a loud as he goes over it in his head, keeping still despite Asael's squirming. "Barging into something isn't a plan. You don't need strength, you need discipline for one thing." There was a long list, Isak had a very long lists of the things he thought Asael needed.

[rancorasael]

What Asael hated more than people who used confusing words instead of speaking normally (not more than the Vanguard, of course, nothing could match his hatred of them) were people who acted like they knew him, and by extension, what he needed. The Tower of Olympia was his first contact with those kinds of people, and what did that place even offer him in the end? Jackshit, except for added strife no one needed least of all him.

"That's so dumb. My body needs my blood, I can't give it up. I don't have a soul, that sounds like some Vanguard nonsense. I thought you said you knew stuff and liked novels? I don't need help, I don't make deals, I'm already strong and I know how to get stronger. On my own. Asking for help is stupid too. If I ask for it, then how will I know whose side someone is really on?"

Power came from the body, not the blood. That's why his weaves only got thicker the more strength he had: because his tough body made the pain of spellcasting feel less than what it was. This concept was so basic that Asael learned it all on his own, no one had to explain it to him. "I told you, I have nothing to give. My magic isn't on the table, I need it." He knew people who claimed to be able to read the squigglys were liars and probably not much smarter than him. How could she not know that strength training was the fastest way to get more magical power?

[rancorasael]

A living, breathing contradiction, Asael couldn't emotionally handle the violence he craved. If it wasn't his magic tearing him apart, it'd be this. He needed revenge, it was all he had to cling to. Without revenge, then what was the point of his suffering? Asael would feel good about what he'd done here in a couple of days while his body recovered from all he put it through. Right now though he had to keep wailing and stoking his rage because if he calmed down, he'd see the blood on his skin and start to remember a time when blood dripped beneath the floorboards.

Drip, drip, drip…

He felt sick, but he resumed punching the remains even after it became impossible to tell whether the blood on his hands came from the brutalized bodies beneath him or his own split knuckles. He could've ramped up again, especially with Seraphiel there to heal him. The battle was over but Asael didn't feel like his revenge was done. He would've kept going for much longer if not for the voice of a siren widening his view beyond his anger.

"I can't stop! They need to answer me! They can't—" Asael was not capable of reason in this state, but between Seraphiel's voice and their hands touching, he did waveringly shift his gaze from the carnage beneath him to the pirate who made this all possible. With a moment to breathe, Asael's expression melted from anger to pure despair. Now he was just crying. "It's not enough, Seraphiel. More of them are out there, spreading evil and death wherever they go. Why can't they disappear?" Asael didn't really need an answer, at least not more than the potion he brought to his lips to drink. They would persist until he purged them from this continent. That was his reality. What he needed was people who wouldn't try to change his mind. He'd feel good soon, even about the fact that he'd be indebted to Seraphiel for this moment, but only after he stopped crying. "How can you stand knowing your enemies are out there breathing because I … I can't!"

Seraphiel watched Asael tear through the battlefield with an intensity that sent a dark thrill through him. Blood spattered against ice, the air thick with the iron tang of it, with the rawness of grief turned into carnage. Seraphiel knew this feeling well—this single-minded pursuit of vengeance. He had walked this path himself, was still walking it, and in Asael, he saw the same fury, the same unwillingness to let go.

But the power Asael wielded was wild, unchecked, and it was making the battlefield treacherous even for their own. Seraphiel exhaled through his nose, his ghostly whispers curling through the air, slipping into the ears of his crew. Retreat to the ship. A gentle command, yet one that compelled them nonetheless. They obeyed without question, slipping back toward safety while Seraphiel remained, watching as Asael’s magic ran rampant.

Shards of ice sliced through the space between them, but Seraphiel merely shifted, flickering in and out of corporeality, letting the deadly fragments pass harmlessly through him. He stepped forward as Asael released another devastating explosion, and when the storm settled, only the wounded remained—some moaning, others too broken to move. Yet even those who tried to crawl away found themselves frozen in place, their limbs locking under Seraphiel’s whispered command.

It was over.

And yet Asael wasn’t finished. His breath came in ragged gasps, his body trembling with exertion and something deeper—something raw and breaking.

Seraphiel knelt beside him, swift and sure, pulling a small glass vial from the folds of his coat. With deft hands, he worked, a flick of his wrist weaving an elixir into existence, its shimmering liquid catching the dim light of the battlefield. "Drink," he murmured, voice quiet, firm. Not an order, but an offering. His fingers brushed Asael’s, pressing the vial into his palm. "You’ll be of no use to me dead."

[rancorasael]

They were so weird. Sure, Auri was using words Asael could understand, but it felt a little like they were having a separate conversation while participating in this one. At the same time. If there was a word for that Asael didn't know it, but words were useless anyway. Responding to unfamiliar situations with anger and confusion got him this far.

"I'm not "underestimating" you. I just know I'm tougher and stronger. If I had you under me, pressed to the ground, there'd be nothing you could do to get out until I was done with you because I workout my body every day. Don't believe me? Well I … that's dumb! A few seconds in my arms and you'd have a broken back. I mean, look at you!"

Two separate people have taken up space in Asael's mind in the same way while in this palace. Was there something in the air? Because now the witch couldn't decide who he wanted to see pinned under him more: Isak or Auri. He typically didn't get this worked up over things unrelated to the Vanguard, but he supposed getting to live indoors for a while softened his instincts some. "Annoying magic from an annoying person," he mutters, having no rebuttal since clearly, Asael had no means to do what Auri could. But that didn't mean he had zero leverage. The witch scoops up all the gold in his arms, huffing in response to Auri's smile. "How could I change the locks? I don't know how to do that and I didn't have any gold. I do now, so you're gonna help me buy some stuff with your power if you ever want to come back to my palace. Do it or I'll fold you and make you."

Could he really take the other in a fight? No, but that wasn't what was directly phrased to Auri which allowed them to bend the truth to what was stated. Still, Asael asked once more and Auri simply shrugged, feeling all too inflated that he seemed to knock the other off his balance, both physically and mentally, Auri noting the way his chest heaved as he tried to regain his breath fully. "I've made it through plenty of instances where I was underestimated," was all Auri could say on the matter, but the other was lean enough which inspired some hope in Auri if Asael was suddenly feeling very prone to fight.

Auri had to take a moment to laugh, however, at the rather colorful way Asael felt wording it; something, something, tenacity, Auri was underestimating Asael here. "What about two arms tied behind my back?" Yes, it was very suggestive but in a more combative and vexing way because that was Auri's brand, the silver elvhen strolling past Asael with little but a glance back on the shirtless witch.

"But I'm feeling like you didn't change the locks, right?" Is all Auri could muster with the faintest smirk, the expression fading into a smaller smile, "Each elvhen is given a mark of the pattern on their soul. Mine happens to deal with gold, though it's not permanent." A gentle warning, for they could con any B-list merchant if they so pleased and get away with it, but time wasn't necessarily on their side for it. "Easier to scoop up gold than your rotten apple cores, however."

[rancorasael]

"Okay, and? So did I before…" Before the Tower's attempts to bring him to heel began to fray against the magnitude of his pain. They bound his trauma and turned him into a model citizen, but now he used his strength for his own goals: killing Vanguard members and—apparently—taking Isak to the ground.

Looking rather indignant, Asael's easily pushed buttons just got smashed something fierce. Isak looked relaxed on the floor and even went so far as to smile. It was slight, but it was memorable because in all the time Asael has spent in Isak's palace, he had never seen the strigoi smile until that moment. Now he was pissed. "I am tough! You little … you … you!" he stammered, so mad that he couldn't even form words. The doctor didn't think he'd be able to do it, and maybe for the last few weeks, the witch was too embarrassed to seriously consider trying beyond what he said to hype himself up when he worked out to failure. Asael really didn't want to be lifted like some stray kitten again, but he also thought about how good it would feel to wipe Isak's smug little smile right off his face.

With his capable body, he sprung from his place on the ground to throw his shoulder into Isak's chest and grapple his midsection harshly. Despite how he was strong and agile enough to make such an aggressive charge while staying that low to the ground, colliding with Isak was like attempting to tackle a brick wall and the recoil nearly made his head spin. But Asael was reckless even when calm. "C'mon c'mon…" he grunted with a strained voice as ever muscle tensed to move Isak. His toes dug into the closet flood while he huffed in his over-exerted state, getting red in the face as he put every ounce of his strength into crushing and dropping Isak to the floor. "You're not ... beating me ... this time!"

Isak's brows raised to an almost comical level as he takes in what Asael had proposed and it takes everything in him not to laugh. Or be somewhat immediately offended that because he was all "stick like" that he wasn't strong. Did Asael not know what he was? Sitting up, shoulders rolling back, he sits there seemingly unbothered as he looks directly at Asael only a few feet from him in his walk-in closet. "I did manual labor my entire life when I was alive." He points out bluntly and the barrage of thoughts that the sentence conjures up is a painful montage but a familiar one. Digging a grave, covering a coffin, hoisting up a headstone. None of it had been easy work, it'd been labor and it'd been often tedious, but someone needed to tend to the dead just as he now attended to the living. "Go for it then." He uncrosses his arms from his chest and lets his palms rest on his knees. Shoulders back, Isak's brow quirks again but this time it's not in disbelief, it's in slight warning. It was something he had thought about, seeing Asael in the field in hopes that he'd gain a little more insight on how his magic was seemingly at war with his body. There was what, only a couple of feet between his head and the floor at the moment? "If you're so tough." The corners of his mouth quirk upwards in a smirk that he knows is taunting. It's not really fair to goad the witch, but he's not opposed to a trial. And maybe proving that he's not just "stick like".

[rancorasael]

Control seemed pointless. Control seemed like weakness, at least as far as Asael was confirmed. Why restrict his weaves when the results when he let them run wild were so effective? To Seraphiel's remark, he merely grunts, shaking his head ambivalently. If the pirate wanted to avoid injury he should've stayed out of the way. Asael's word extended to the Captain and the Captain alone. It's not like the cold bothered Seraphiel anyway.

He may not have been able to hear the siren song through the rageful blood rushing through his ears, but it was there pressing into his being like a dark lullaby. He felt powerful and unstoppable, making it easy to boulder through enemy after enemy that he had in his sight. The ones who were frozen in ice were punched through with prejudice, and the ones who weren't got chased down and pummeled through with surges of Asael's magic as they slipped over frozen ground in their attempts to flee.

"No no no! They can't take anything else! They need to pay, I'll make to pay!" The more he attacked, the more reckless he became. Usually his rage numbed his pain, but for now it was his desire to see this through for Seraphiel. Vengeance wasn't meant to be drawn out, it was meant to be brutal. He could see them forming up, and he zeroed in on their battle formation to the point where once again, the rest of the Thalassa's Armada essentially disappeared from view. One ice explosion without regard for the pirates around him launched Asael through the air to the gathering Vanguard. They came at him with weapons and he came at them with fists, but in the end Asael didn't care how they struck at him. With two pinned beneath him, both arms swinging at their faces until their blood splashed on his skin while his tears splashed on theirs.

He was screaming, not from the other Vanguard members piling on to restrain or cut him down, but from the flashes of dripping blood that he saw through blinding migraines or the wave of nausea so intense he thought he would vomit again. Then he did it, pulled more cold, unrelenting threads from the world around him, so many that his weaves were clear to the naked eye. Unrefined and wild, they condensed before exploding outward, jagged edges and violent points gouging any who were close, leaving Asael covered in ice and blood. Without Seraphiel's voice, such a spell likely would've burned through a good portion of his body, but the healing he received made him more reckless than normal. "It's not enough! Why couldn't you die years ago? Huh? Is this what your god wants? He's not real and look at you! Look at you!" Asael made no point as he screamed and sobbed to the red ice slush beneath him. Vanguard members were reduced to cold meat under his fists, others were torn apart or impaled around him, and he felt nothing but dread, despair, and anger. "Where are the others? Tell me! More of you need to die, it's not enough!"

Seraphiel didn’t so much as flinch when Asael’s ice shot out in all directions, but he did release a slow, measured sigh when—once again—it struck the same unfortunate crew member from last time. The man went down with an indignant grunt, clutching his frostbitten arm. “…He’d just healed from the last time, Asael,” Seraphiel remarked, his tone almost bored as he stepped over the fallen pirate and continued forward.

Seraphiel’s gaze flickered toward Asael, watching the way ice fractals clung to his skin like creeping vines, the way pain etched itself into the lines of his face. Foolish. Reckless. But undeniably effective. Still, Seraphiel didn’t like his assets damaged—especially not when they could still be useful.

As Asael surged forward, Seraphiel’s voice slipped into the air like a ghostly current, threading between the howling wind and cracking ice. A siren’s lull, subtle and insidious, wove through the battlefield. Asael’s pain dulled, his body granted momentary reprieve—not that he would realize it. The healing was a quiet thing, done without fanfare or recognition.

At the same time, Seraphiel’s banshee whispers slithered into the ears of the Vanguard, twisting their perceptions, making their movements sluggish and clumsy. Their strikes missed their marks, their footing became unsure. "We can't let them get in formation, or we'll be at risk of cleaving."

[rancorasael]

Even in his most dire physical states, Asael always found the internal strength to train at least some muscles daily. When Isak found him in that alleyway, frostbitten and damaged, he would've done some exercise after finding a comfortable patch of mud to pass out in.   "I can do pushups anywhere, and your door frames here don't break when I pull myself up on them too. I work out my grip a lot. Situps, squats, strength training stuff. The stronger the body, the stronger the magic," he says, the correlation rather simple in his brain. If his muscles were tough, then he wouldn't get exhausted as quickly when he used his wild magic, or so he's come to believe. "You're all stick-like, I don't know why some quack has to be so strong. But that's my new goal. I was gonna hide out and pin you down the second you got back, but…"   But then he had to go find a closet to hide in because the noises outside were so scary. Messed up his plans a bit, but he wouldn't stop trying. "If can take you to the ground and make you say mercy, then I'll be a very strong witch. I'll be unstoppable. Then I can make them hurt, but no mercy for them…" Asael was getting angry again.

There's a lot to unpack with everything Asael presented, as usual. He's like the world's most interesting carpet bag of holding, just when Isak thought he'd figured something out, more (oftentimes terrible) information came out. And yet there's something kind of....Endearing that the witch thought of his home as a kind of base. It's not a feeling he's familiar with, but he is used to being fairly protective and he has an inkling that the feeling extends towards his new pet project. "Training your body how?" Brow furrowed, he rests his elbows on his knees as Asael takes the potion. Because to an extent, yes, his body would have gotten used to running on empty to sustain him. However, Isak also thought Asael lived like he was around for a good time killing the Vanguard, not a long time and that was....It didn't sit right with him.

[rancorasael]

"Nuh uh." Asael's protest came out with such force he almost lost his balance. He was mid rep too, so there was hardly enough air in his lungs to speak anyway, making his obstinant retort come out sounding strained. Asael lived in the lower city of Eterna since he arrived in this country, and on the streets too in his most recent years. Day to day life was very rough and tumble, having scraps with other street urchins over the best piles of garbage or dirt. And Asael oftentimes had self-inflicted injuries to overcome in these moments.

The idea that some clean, posh little twig could take him on compounded on his already mounting frustration. Who did this guy think he was? "I could flip you on your head, fold you 'til you break, and pummel your ass with one arm tied behind your back. You really think you could take me?" Asael pushes hard with his hands, returning to a standing position. He was shirtless, right? Skinny arms over there could see his muscles, right? And he could still do more reps too!

"He's so bossy, he made me take a bath when I didn't want to and he lifts me up like I'm some sort of animal…" Grumbling, now annoyed at both his recount of Isak's behavior and the elvhen skeleton who was making suggestions on his life, Asael paused his workout to walk over. "Hey I'm not some patient guy for him and I'm not a guest. This is my palace because he left it. I … took it from him, just like I took his gold. This isn't a handout like you wanted to give me. I don't owe him anything, so no I don't have to pick up my trash. What are you even—" Asael moved to jerk Auri by the shoulder when he noticed the pile of gold near his feet. Mesmerized and temporarily distracted by the gilded apple cores, Asael reached down to grab one and look at it closer. "How'd you do that? I've never seen so much gold at once!"

"If I wanted to, I could take you," Auri smiled at that because they were definitely talking about a fight, right? In any case, Asael didn't necessarily scare him in the sense that his bark was arguably worse than his bite, least where Auri was concerned; he didn't wish to think of who Asael had struck when they met him, and they were indeed delusional enough to think that they were safe from any magical harm currently. Auri couldn't quite help himself as he stared down in mild horror at the mess before him; left out food, clothes strewn about, blankets tossed wherever.

"So, he's a bit demanding," Auri found appeal in that, but he didn't quite say it out loud, shrugging as he stated this to the witch. "Whether you're his patient... or his guest... don't you think picking up your apple cores is the least you can do as you toughen up?" Auri tried not to scrunch his nose as they stated this, kicking a core into the small pile in the corner.

"You're the one who didn't take my gold," not that it'd have lasted this long, but Auri smiled at Asael despite him still being in a makeshift handstand, the silver elvhen focusing on the mountain of apple cores, concentrating momentarily as they fell into a jingling sound of gold. Auri turned back to Asael smiling somewhat smugly, "If you want to go to the markets, you have a few hours."

[rancorasael]

What Asael hated more than people who used confusing words instead of speaking normally (not more than the Vanguard, of course, nothing could match his hatred of them) were people who acted like they knew him, and by extension, what he needed. The Tower of Olympia was his first contact with those kinds of people, and what did that place even offer him in the end? Jackshit, except for added strife no one needed least of all him.

"That's so dumb. My body needs my blood, I can't give it up. I don't have a soul, that sounds like some Vanguard nonsense. I thought you said you knew stuff and liked novels? I don't need help, I don't make deals, I'm already strong and I know how to get stronger. On my own. Asking for help is stupid too. If I ask for it, then how will I know whose side someone is really on?"

Power came from the body, not the blood. That's why his weaves only got thicker the more strength he had: because his tough body made the pain of spellcasting feel less than what it was. This concept was so basic that Asael learned it all on his own, no one had to explain it to him. "I told you, I have nothing to give. My magic isn't on the table, I need it." He knew people who claimed to be able to read the squigglys were liars and probably not much smarter than him. How could she not know that strength training was the fastest way to get more magical power?

“Oh, but that isn’t quite right, is it?” She hums deliberately. There is always a use for the downtrodden, but the hopeless, for the despairing, for the raging. The candles needed to spark an inferno can come from the most unlikely of places, be it from a soldier or an urchin, a king or a pawn. “You have yourself.”

There is no dramatic pause as she continues, for she doubts the fool before her would appreciate it. Instead, she continues on, speaking conversationally, as if she was discussing the weather, rather than something many would find displeasing to discuss under the shining sun.

“You have your blood, your magic, your soul,” she continued, counting down with her fingers as she was taking stock of what he could offer. “Your body too, but people are less willing to sell that I am told. Regardless, if you look hard enough, you will find people willing to help for the right price. Blood has more power than you would believe, and giving up any of the three would get you great power in return. All you need to do is find the right person to strike a deal with.”

[rancorasael]

[rancorasael]

Breathing through his exercises, Asael continued to pull himself up so that his chin went over the lip of the doorframe. He knocked them out one by one, never losing his grip or slowing in pace. For all the harm he'd done to his body over years of untrained, unrestrained spellweaving, Asael had absolute faith in his physical ability. This was why. Even when he was suffering from self-inflicted cell necrosis or vomiting up blood, he always found a way to do some strength training. To him, a strong body led to strong magic.

"I'm gonna prove it anyway. This is my home now. If you see how strong I am, you won't get any dumb ideas," he grunts out as he suspends himself pulled all the way up the door frame and held his position there, another display of how strong his arms alone were. "The quack is built like a stick too, but he's strong. Stronger than me. For now. What if you're the same, huh? Better to show you this way that I could pin you no matter what you're hiding." Asael says all this with some strain before slowly lowering himself down and then dropping to the ground. A couple heavy breaths later and he's balancing himself into a handstand so that he can begin lowering his face close to the floor then pushing up, over and over.

"What? It's just a little mess," he counters, watching Auri while upside down but not stopping his workout to have this discussion. "I don't know how long he's been gone. A couple weeks? He doesn't tell me anything except when he's bossing me around. Sit, strip, take a bath, he's so annoying. I'm gonna be so strong when he gets back that he'll be crying mercy when I lock him in a stranglehold." Yeah, that thought motivated Asael a lot. He threw one hand behind his back and continued his handstand pushups singled armed. "Count the apple cores and I can guess how long I've been here. I almost used up all his spare gold so he better come back soon."

Auri blinked, and then blinked a few more times, their brows knit in a very confuddled expression; for their own strange path in life, Asael had certainly been through stranger, and it only made Auri all the more curious. The doctor seemed a hard egg to crack and yet he'd taken Asael within his home easily, masquerading him as a patient and nothing more or less. Auri, of course, didn't buy such label and here they were rooting around for more, only to discover that the doctor was gone and that he'd apparently left rather quickly.

Asael strode away from the door and Auri could hear the soft motion of the witch leaping up to a nearby doorframe, the inevitable huff and puff as Asael began to do pull ups. "Hey, you've nothing to prove to me on your reps," stated casually as Auri walked in, their nose crinkled inevitably at what had to be all of Asael's doing. "How long has Isak been gone for?" Saying they were appalled was an understatement, trash littered one corner of each room it seemed, and Asael was certainly making himself at home. "I..... what did you do?!" Within Avalon, Auri had lived amongst the wilderness and within Iskaldrik he didn't often have four walls and a roof surrounding him, but even Auri knew how to keep a place tidy.

[rancorasael]

Asael was incredibly simple minded. If people didn't vehemently hate the Vanguard like he did, then he saw them as apologists and viewed them as enemies to one day kill. Isak hadn't made any attempts to help Asael track down Vanguard members in Eterna, but he also wasn't trying to talk Asael out of his revenge journey. At least, not directly.

That's probably why he never really knew how to respond to the doctor. He casted his way and refused to change, but now he was starting to feel a little guilty that Isak was treating the same injuries over and over. Only a little though. "I told you I'm tough. I've been training my body for years so it can handle my magic. If I could be a little tougher, then maybe I wouldn't get hurt so much."

He takes the bottle and drinks the potion quickly, not much caring for the flavor but knowledgeable enough now to accept that it will help. When he swallows it all, Asael visibly hesitates before lowering his knees, showing Isak the damage on his chest proving that he nearly burned himself through. Again. "I'm not lucky, I'm strong. And I'm smart too. I know that I can vomit four times before I get close to my spell limit. Plus, when the burning got real bad I stopped when I tasted blood. And I … thought maybe it was okay to push myself. Because if I could make it back here, it would be okay." It was quite terrifying for Asael to get closer to admitting that he was starting to rely on Isak. Having a roof and regular meals was nice. And perhaps bathing wasn't all that bad either. He liked Isak's palace, as creepy as it was.

"I said I would help you and I meant it." Isak's tone is even and calm as he takes in the sight of frostbitten digits, tinged blue and purple and his lips purse. It's sheer morbid curiosity that has him gently taking a bruised looking index finger between his own index finger and thumb. He can't feel the cold there, but he can feel the overall stiffness and that can't be good. "Okay." He exhales a breath he does not need to take and returns his hands to himself only to rub at the bridge of his nose with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand, only for the digits to come away with flecks of what is left of the dark liner he preferred at Caer Glass and in the field. Isak sighs. "You're lucky you didn't lose a hand." With all the grace of the large black cat he certainly is on the inside, he rises from the floor of the closet. It takes maybe a minute for him to move back downstairs, grab a potion, and perch himself back on the closet floor. Holding out the bottle to Asael, he tries not to think about attaching hands. "It's an easy enough procedure to fix if you're quick enough, but the feeling never quite goes away."

[rancorasael]

This revenge journey he's been on has continued for years, but in all that time Asael never had never had any allies. With the Tower binding his trauma he got a late start, but all that time he worked as a laborer in the Lower City with the mindset of an unfeeling sheep superimposed onto his mind his rage festered. He may not have been able to act on it, but it festered. When the threads began to fray and the fog began to clear, he assumed he'd have to kill the Vanguard all on his own. It was strange to have so many people on his side, but Asael hated being in debt. He'd keep his word: so long as Seraphiel acted as his ally he would give his power to the banshees goals as well.

The crew of Thalassa's Armada moved like a militant unit so well that even Asael was impressed. But he wasn't like them and never relied on stealth to get things done. He eagerly disembarked by leaping off the side of the ship onto the ship, noise be damned. He moved in one direction with one purpose in mind: destruction. "One spell, that's all I need. I haven't casted today so I have plenty of strength," he says to Seraphiel, demonstrating that he had not developed his magical talents further since they last met. "Whoever gets away after, yeah your crew can gut them for me. But the ones my ice catches are mine. I want them to look me in the eye before I send them to the fake god they love so much." Asael stops walking just so that he can start pulling power to him. "And if any of your crew get caught up in the blast, so be it." Asael promised his magic to Seraphiel, he felt no such allegiance to the rest.

With the embers of his rage suitably stoked, Asael started jogging and then running toward the camp. It may have been an impatient and reckless mood, but tonight, especially, Asael was undeterred by the harm his large-scale weaves would inflict on his body. The temperature all around began to drop the more threads Asael pulled to his fists. His spellweaving may have been crude, but his disregard for burning himself through was evident in the way he burst into the camp and slammed his fists into the ground, releasing devastating waves of ice. Pain wracked his body as such a powerful surge undoubtedly backfired, but he didn't care. Just the mere sight of their religious symbols erased all sense of reason from his mind. Ice fractals and frostbite already sticking to his skin, when he stood all that mattered to him were the frozen figures of the Vanguard that weren't absolutely obliterated. Not all of them were caught, but Asael didn't need to worry about them with backup. Maybe taking the Vanguard on as a group wasn't so bad after all. "Which ones have witch blood on their hands? Who killed one recently? Does it matter? No. You're all fucking guilty!" he roared, not even certain if this particular attack left the Vanguard members with the ability to hear or respond as he moved to kick the nearest one down and stomp his frozen body to pieces.

Seraphiel resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose at Asael’s bluntness, though the thought of several choice insults flickered through his mind. He banished them all with a mental sigh. Asael’s simplicity, as grating as it was, had its uses—someone like him could be pointed in a direction and unleashed like a hurricane. And, for now, Seraphiel intended to ensure that storm worked to his advantage.

As the ship glided closer to the rocky shore, Seraphiel straightened, his gaze sweeping the Vanguard camp. The faint glow of their torches betrayed movements among their soldiers, though they seemed blissfully unaware of the danger creeping toward them. Turning to his crew, Seraphiel’s voice rang out, calm and commanding. “Surround the camp,” he instructed, gesturing to the cliffs that loomed above the coastline. “No one escapes. I want those cliffs sealed, the shoreline cut off."

The rhythmic thud of boots against wood echoed as the boarding ramp was lowered with a creak. Seraphiel’s crew moved like shadows, slipping into the night with the quiet efficiency of wolves on a hunt. Seraphiel, however, stayed by Asael’s side, walking with him toward the camp. His hands remained loose at his sides, his expression calm but sharp, like a blade waiting to be unsheathed.

“Let me clarify,” Seraphiel said, his tone smooth as the sea’s surface but carrying an edge. “Do you want help with the killing, or should my crew keep them alive long enough for you to give them that trial you spoke of during our first meeting?"

[rancorasael]

That was good to hear at least. Asael's tension visibly melted from his shoulders, but he'd have to see it with his own eyes to accept Isak's words as truth. When he was certain the noises were over, he'd go outside and look. For now though, the closet felt safe. He stopped looking at Isak with the nondescript murderous rage that bubbled up at the mere thought of the Vanguard of the Light causing him to sit in a closet for so long. Instead, he looks at the strigoi curiously as if there were actual thoughts in his head about the guy. "You're weird," he muttered, kicking out his toe to nudge Isak back. If he was about to get picked up again he wanted the other to know that he wouldn't go out without swinging. He was quite surprised at Isak sitting with him. Usually, they were only eye to eye when Isak made him hang in the air by his shirt. "I don't wanna," Asael says while making an effort to hide them more. However, he realizes that he still needs Isak's help. Who knows when the guy would disappear? Slowly, he uncurls his fingers and sticks out both hands for Isak to hold. "I wasn't careful, alright? I didn't want you to see because … I wanted to make you keep your promise."

"Vanguard has nothing to do with it." Probably, perhaps their religion wasn't organized enough to get to the level of explosions in the name of whatever the hell they worshipped. Stepping further into the closet, he takes a good look at Asael, curled up in on himself on the floor and he cants his head to the side slightly. Gingerly, he nudges at Asael's ankle with his boot, in an attempt to get him to move. Contemplating how to go about telling the witch that what he'd described and the condition he was in now were two totally different thing felt like a chore he wasn't up to at the moment after the journey back. So Isak sits on the floor, his legs folding beneath him. There's a lingering necrotic smell again, decay, and he has a sinking suspicion the way Asael is curled up. "Give me your hands." It's not a question, it's not a request, and he holds out his own hand tattooed hand palm up.