BLACK DOVE TAVERN | EVENING
Maybe there had never been.
Patrons in various states of recovery and shock watched the trio as they left the Dove and out into the chilled, foggy early Dentis evening. The thick mist had rolled off the harbor when the sun had set, and the temperatures were already beginning the slow crawl toward the chill of winter during this in between season when everything faded and fell asleep. Corwynn followed a few steps behind, leaving everyone else in their wake without a second thought as if this was simply how things were done in the Harbor, and, truth be told, whenever Silas was out on the prowl outside of his decadent palace, this was exactly how things went.
Unplanned adventures abound, every clocking time, and the older galdor couldn't say he wasn't used to it and couldn't say he didn't mind. His crystalline gaze watched the pair in front of him, five-fingered left hand on the pistol at his hip, field taut and sigiled See this page on the wiki for definition of field terminology..
Passives were a curious lot, and one Corwynn admittedly didn't believe were cursed. No, he'd been around only a few free ones in his two and a half decades after graduating from Brunnhold, and none of them seemed at all broken or burdened by the gods, save for their inability to use magic. This one was no exception, though Leander the gambler appeared to have a bit of a chip on his tattooed shoulder, that was for clocking sure. Still maintaining a presence in galdori society, the blond gunman had been around quite a few spoiled toffins in his time, but never had he expected some magicless scrap to feel so curiously familiar with his suave sense of entitlement.
It would have been amusing had it not felt like he almost died.
The older galdor had experienced plenty of pain in his lifetime, from being conscious and sober when his once-dominant hand's trigger finger was removed ever so slowly by Silas himself to being shot, beaten, nearly drowned, stabbed, cut, slapped, bitten, and otherwise harmed by so many creative means imaginable throughout the illustrious course of his illegal career. But that diablerie was something else.
Corwynn smirked, watching as his King led the three of them through the streets as if he didn't have a care in the world, leaning against the younger man and waving his bejeweled fingers at various businesses, declaring their services and their worth to himself down to the ha'penny of value. He made sure to take several side streets, to weave them through the warrens and seedier parts of town on their way to the Palace, as if he wanted to make sure that everyone was thoroughly exhausted by the time they arrived, as if he hadn't been harmed at all by the kind of intense pain Leander's diablerie had inflicted on everyone at the table playing cards that evening,
"So, scrap, other than this here promissory note I've got tucked into my fine coat pocket, what are ye worth? Ye killed poor Dobbin an' ye went an' ruined my night o' fun out on the town. If I were a dumber wick—and I'm not—I'd almost say ye were out to kill me, but yer just not that kind o' kov, I can tell." Silas purred, leading them through the finer parts of the Harbor and beginning the ascent to his property, high on a hill above the rest of the city. The compound was a sprawling estate, well guarded and well kept.
He kept a hold on the passive as they walked, reaching with one hand into his coat for his silver cigarette case again, dexterously managing to open it, remove another rolled paper, stick it between his pretty lips, and tuck the case away without dropping anything. A shift in his field and an exhale of Monite, and he was puffing to keep the thing lit where the mona had lit it just as he asked. This time, his exhaled smoke was a verdant green and the scent of the strange tobacco was earthy and almost minty,
"Yer handwritin's mant mana pretty for a little boy who never got to go to school past his tenth clockin' birthday. Who taught you to write so fancy, hmm?"
Corwynn sniggered from behind them, quite suspicious of the promise of coin, and aware of the consequences of attempting to cheat Hawke out of his own money.
The cast iron gates to the Palace loomed ahead, the dull glow of oil lantern light flickering off the faces of the guards waiting.