Guarded Beginnings

--==New Scene, Wilderness Outside Nexus: The Journey from Sol to New Haven==--
After many, many, many days spent on the high roads, the group of travelers diverts their horses into the untamed forest surrounding New Haven. As soon as a clearing wide enough for their tents has been found - and a stream nearby, as luck would have it - they begin to set up their camp for the evening.
At one end of their ragged circle, Juno is in the midst of her post-ride regimen, having already discarded her breastplate to be cleaned later. Still clad in her gambeson and greaves, the paladin takes several minutes to tend to her horse, and the beast's patience is rewarded when she retrieves an apple from the saddlebags. She gives the horse's velvety snout a fond stroke between slices of fruit.
As the sun falls beneath the peaks to the western mountain, motes of lights drift up towards the forest canopy like wayward dandelions. The plant life out in Arhor'ha can be dangerous but also quite beautiful as it casts towards a sky that sends ribbons light against the overcast of clouds: a sky aurora. It is as common as clouds themselves and paints the approaching evening in a campfire hue. Its not the vibrant sky that Dante is looking at as he casts his hypnotic amber eyes skyward.
The smoky haired tiefling is looking at the floating city that can be seen so close to Nexus. It hovers there, a recent addition of only a couple years. It serves as a reminder of the conflict that claimed many. It is a floating tombstone, a memorial.
The thick, gauntleted hand of Dante Perdita makes a chef's 'kiss of perfection' to the landscape. "Is beautiful, no?" to no one in particular. Even when Dante is being sincere, he sounds like he is embellishing something. "How that rock scrapes against a canvas of orange, blue, and purple. A lost soul, seeking the release of gravity," he adds, in bardic satire, "we hear you, lost rock. Stay strong up there." Embellishing or simply full of shit.
The tiefling's romanticizing distracts Juno from the horse for a moment, and green eyes drift upwards to take in the jagged shape of the derelict city, hovering like a ghost. Her contented smile fades, chased back by a haunted look of regret. As ever, she wears her heart on her sleeve.
"Beauty wants contrast," she responds to Dante's artistic assessment of the view, threading her fingers through the horse's forelock. The phrase is recited in an almost automatic tone, something she's said a handful of times during their journey, a philosophical adage. "You could not have chosen to appreciate a sight more opposed to it."
"Is that so?" Dante replies back as his eyes are fixed on that rock up there. It has been some time since he came back this way. It was a forest like this where his life changed and the sight of that memorial burns bright in his mind's eye. All behind a mask of a smile and a silver tongue, he turns back to the lady and her steed, "Perhaps my tastes are not as refined as yours, then, as I am simply enamored by it. The defiance it displays against forces literally demanding it be chained to the earth like us simple mortal things. Placed up there with such celestial splendor of an aurora rippling across the sky. A sea of flowers blooming into light. And here, this dark stone, with it tales of war and conquest." He rumbles deeply in a grunt of who has bitten deeply into food for his soul. "It does not inspire the spirit of adventure deep within you?" he asks, casting his hand back to the floating cityscape, "What is up there? What tales are hidden amongst its ruins. Perhaps people fought there, lived there."
A deep breath and an exhale, his energy bordering between exhausting to be around or invigorating. Dante smiles a smile mercantile smile, "I forget myself, please forgive. You offer perspective and the spirit of the moment carries me out like driftwood to the sea. What is that you see, up there, out here?"
Dante's energy seems to have the former effect on Juno. The woman's lips thin slightly as the bard goes on and on, resolutely focused on tending to the horse's bridle and tack, before seeking out a place to sit on the overgrown roots of an ancient, twisted oak. She keeps her face down as her fingers tug at the fastenings of her greaves.
"Defiance for its own sake does not stir admiration in me," she returns flatly, before seeming to regret her less-than-amiable tone, offering, "But such things are in the eye of the beholder, are they not?"
She throws one last, bitter glance towards the floating cityscape. The expression does not sit well on a face most often seen smiling. "All I see is a necropolis."
"A necropolis," Dante asks, his silvery voice accented by curiosity and question. Amber eyes that glow softly against the fading light are cast to the city and back to Juno. "You... think there is a tomb up there?" His eyes cast up and to the side as if searching his brain for thought, "Or multiple tombs, to be a necropolis, no?" An actor in his role. He remembers the scores of men and women that set foot on that ground and never returned. The betrayed.
"I believe it to be the necropolis. The lot of it."
The tiefling takes his natural hand and runs it back against his hair that drifts off like gently smoldering smoke. "I," he looks back to the city, "don't see it. But, I would like to." A head turn back as his body language is relaxed and if it wasn't for the large gauntlet on his other hand, the scene would fit a common town square conversation, "Is there kindness to spare to help me broaden my horizons, mm?"
Discomfort bows the set of her shoulders, her features gloomy indeed as she sets to wiping down her armor, the metal weathered but burnished bright with regular care. For all that Juno is willing to talk about a variety of subjects - even ones that are far outside her realm, as Greyson could attest - it seems this is a topic she is reluctant to expound upon.
"Kindness, yes, but it would ill serve you. My outlook on the subject is narrow indeed: well-intentioned men and women who were led by the nose into a massacre." A short sigh follows as she appears to bite her tongue. "Your horizons would be broadened better by a scholar."
Greyson, enveloped in an academic text, does not seem to notice the conversation between Dante and Juno. Only after she mentions the word "scholar" does he seem to stir back to his surroundings. He strings together the last few sentences his subconsciousness overheard.
"Necropolis? Massacre? Yes, yes, of course. All are eventually led by the nose, or the noose, to the massacre. The only question is, where? On what ground will we choose to die on?"
Greyson inhales and exhales deeply, rubs his eyes, and closes the book. For the first time, it seems, he notices the setting sun on the land. He looks around and tries to remember is bearing.
"Where are we, exactly? How much longer do we have on this journey? And what of the Necropolis? Do you suppose there might be something worth exploring there, and any idea on the risks associated?"
Juno huffs gently as Greyson wonders his first few questions aloud.
"I only pray that my ultimate choice is well-informed, and not manipulated."
With that, she sets aside her armor maintenance for the evening, and stands to collect her bedroll and such from her horse's saddlebags.
Greyson involuntarily huffs in response, but he keeps his thoughts to himself. Praying won't help, he thinks to himself as he shakes his head.
"I suppose it is getting dark, isn't it?" Greyson stands up, extends his lumbar and cracks his back. "Oof," he mutters, and follows Juno's lead by unpacking his horse for the night.
Dante does a good job of playing ping pong with his gaze between Juno and Greyson as the conversation progresses. "I feel my horizons broadening second by second," the silver-tongued sellsword says in deadpan sarcasm. It isn't that Dante doesn't care about sleeping comfortably, but he is most likely the last to do so. Tonight is no exception. "Isn't that the fun thing about an ultimate choice? Just make another choice. Suddenly, its the pendultimate choice. Eventually it is just 'a choice'," the bardric rogue of a fighter says as he multiclasses his conversation into wizard.
Greyson mutters under his breath to Juno, attempting to keep quite from Dante: "He talks nonsense while making wise and meaningful faces." JunoYesterday at 8:13 PM It’s Juno’s turn to make a brief ping pong glance between the two philosophizers, brows crinkled in a you have got to be kidding me sort of way. Despite herself, she gives Greyson a small, bemused smile as she rolls out her bedding.
Diplomatically, she steers the topic gently away. “Barring weather, I also wonder just how far we’ve ventured? I admit my mind wandered a little after we entered the forest.”
"Yes, I wasn't paying attention either," Greyson says. "Sellsword, how far have we traveled?"
Three topics. Three whiffs. Dante Perdita offers a smile back but does not answer. He stretches one arm over his head, the gauntlet raising to the soft hues of the fading sky. "Ahhh, what was it you just said?" he feigns that he didn't hear, eyes settling down on Greyson in chilly disregard. "I was just thinking about tomorrow's breakfast, quite a distracting thought."
"I, uh..." Greyson clears his throat. "My apologies. I seemed to have lost myself for a moment. My mind is still reeling from Mythanthor's text about transcomputational divergence. It appears as if I have lost my surroundings and was asking, Sir, if you know how long we have been traveling, and how long we have yet to go?"
An eyebrow raises at the explanation. Dante can't recall the last time someone called him Sir. He has to think about it pretty hard. No results found. "I, too, find myself lost in Myth-in-a-door's work. His chapters on the fabled feywood doors is as divergent as they come," he replies. "So you are saying I can lead you anywhere, in these dark and dangerous woods, surrounded by feral beasts, and you did not track your bearings?"
There is a wry, grin on his face as he laughs out loud. It is enough to cause birds to fly from a nearby tree. "Your trust is a comfort. Like a campfire on a good night. Have no fear, we are still on track and course, if that is your concern. Evil monsters and their ill begotten riches are still waiting there, waiting to be redistributed to better hands with less nefarious uses for them." "Indeed, I defer to your sound judgment and experience to getting us through this journey alive, as I have little navigational skills to speak of," Greyson says and nods to Dante.
Juno grins wryly as she sits, cross-legged in her bedroll, comforted now that the earlier topic seeming to be behind them now. Her hands busy themselves with the other part of her evening ritual - the washing of her hands and face, at least, and getting a comb through her hair. Apparently Sunite beauty regimens are non-negotiable.
“What is the nature of this beast we’re set to face, anyhow?”
Greyson, now cautious and more reserved than before for his perceived missteps, remains silent and looks to Dante to take the lead.
"A previous job, not too different from this, involved laying low an evil dragon and staking claim to its treasure horde," Dante offers with a gesture of the hand. "So the kind of monster that hordes wealth at the expense of others," the sellsword thinks on it harder, "our benefactor is not the most verbose in the size and teeth-count category."
Her head tilts slightly, turning an observant gaze toward the bard.
“You must trust him a great deal in kind, if you’re ready to stride headfirst into the monster’s den.”
The tiefling tilts his head to the side, "Trust him." He closes his eyes. Does he trust Ozy. "I suppose I do. He is an honest kind of brute. Paid us when the job was done. Offered more work. Didn't abandon us in the thick of a fight. Any one of those puts a coin in the purse of 'Yes, If adventure calls, having you near is a boon'."
Dante opens his eyes again, "Its a place the four of us will be in. We don't all have to be the best drinking buddies, but a degree of trust is important, no?"
She emits a sort of approving hum as he describes his - and their - employer, nodding readily as he poses the question.
“I’d agree that it is. Right, Greyson?” She turns her gaze toward the bookworm, brow peeking lightly as she prods him back into the conversation.
"Yes, yes, of course," Greyson says, and then opens up a book again.
There is a click of the dark haired bard's tongue in his cheek, "Worst case, we can't stand each other and there is a good stop at New Haven. Hahahahaha!" Hands on hips laughter. Dante settles down. "That won't be for a while, yet. Our route takes us around Nexus. The dark forests filled with gnashing predators is safer yet than that place is right now."
She grimaces somewhat. “And what is the latest news from that place?”
"Of New Haven?" Dante inquires, "Or of Nexus?"
“Ah, Nexus.”
That request comes with a great deal of weight. Dante finds a nice log to park his rear on. "Depends on how far you want to go. What you want to know. Xan'theril elves still occupy the city-state but Resistance forces have been turning the tide. Better equipped than before. They came into some money and it is making a difference. Leveling the field."
Beads intertwined in loose hanging dreadlocks knock against each other and jingle with each approaching step. Arms filled with sticks of various sizes open to send them tumbling to the earth, crashing into a heap in front of those spreading out bedrolls and chatting. “I hope my friend here is not bothering you too much?” Eyes briefly glance to Dante with a grin from the uppermost corner of her mouth as she looks away, eyes landing on the two new faces. “I heard talk about Nexus, though my travels have not brought me there. Not one to take up home In such…..mhm….complicated cities.” She tosses a smile to them both. A warm and kind presence she leaves in the wake of a questionable character, Dante Perdita. “But I suppose our journey takes us around that area. Not sure what is more dangerous, inside the city, or out of it at this point. Ah.. but I only speak from what I’ve heard in passing.”
“A passing curiosity,” she explains, tucking away the tortoiseshell comb. “I have no plans to visit in the near future.”
Juno rises and moves closer with a flint stone in hand, offering Thyme a warm smile as she stoops to help arrange the gathered material into a campfire. “Thank you, Thyme.”
Dante leans back on his log, "Then that is approximately 'passing curiosity' update on the area," letting the topic rest. He yawns.