The Beast and the Mage

The Beast and the Mage
Date of Scene:	02 August 2013
Location:	Hollow Bastion - Underground
Synopsis:	Seith encounters the prowling beast of Hollow Bastion.
Cast of Characters:	Seith, Disarray Grimstone

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Disarray Grimstone has posed:
The sounds of clanging metal and the screams of prisoners seems perfectly normal in the dark, lower chambers of Hollow Bastion. Though, the addition of the beastly blacksmith had come only recently, she seems to have made herself at home. With the armies of the Shadow Lords facing off against heroes of various worlds, having someone who can fashion and repair armaments certainly made her useful. Yet, most avoided these tunnels, perhaps due to her 'beastly' appearance, or the disposition that goes along with it.

The smithy has been made from what was clearly a dungeon at one point. Three small alcoves, closed in by heavy iron bars cover one wall. The rest of what was probably a torture chamber has been converted, with a huge stove and various tools of the trade. Of course, these look as if they could double as instruments of torture as well. Further back, what was probably once a guard barracks has been converted into the beast's personal quarters, although the details are impossible to see with the lights off.

A simpering sound comes from one of the cages, followed by a growl and a clang of metal as a piece of scrap gets thrown at the bars. "Shut up!" The beast turns her head, snarling, showing sharp, feline teeth. At one of the anvils, a man stops working, looking over towards the cells, his face pale and his expression tight. His hands and legs are chained together, marking him as a prisoner as much as a worker.

"Did I tell you to stop working?" Disarray is quick to turn her eyes back on the man, who sets his head down and goes back to repairing what seems to be a dented set of armor for one of the underlings that worked within the castle. "Hrmph."

The beast flicks her tail, then grabs up tongs to pull a vial of red-hot metal out of the forge, taking time to pour it into a mold. The smithy is always busy.

Seith has posed:
The sound of heavy armor moving joins the sounds of clanging and screams amidst the lower halls of the Hollow Bastion. While many may avoid this place, especially with the current resident, the Shadow Lord known as Seith has perused Disarray's services before - although that has usually been by making a Heartless bring her his mangled armor. This means that the Beast has never seen the man in person, short of perhaps a few times when the man moved through the halls between the many rooms of the Hollow Bastion. A beautiful elf in wretched horns and dark armor. A man who doesn't care about outward beauty outside of his meticulously kept own. And that's more a distraction than anything else, of which the only sign is the jewelry in his hair.

When the man finally makes it downstairs, she might come to know why this man has come of his own volution. Tears run across his armor, and it looks like some of the metal has bent in such a way that the heavy armor would be rather difficult to take off. His gaze drifts towards the imprisoned man working with Disarray, before turning towards Disarray herself. What she might find is an odd 'lack' of fear or resentment, or even disgust. He observes her as a normal person. Perhaps it's the fact that he met Avira as a Mutate, or the many worlds this man has seen. But somehow, he just doesn't seem 'surprised'.

"Do excuse me for entering your domain unannounced." Seith declares to her, raising his voice enough that it can be clearly heard over the forging of weapons and armor. "But I would seem to have gotten myself into quite a predicament. Might I request your assistance in this matter?" The man doesn't speak with particularly fancy words, but his tone of voice has that natural sing-songy nature of an elf's.

Disarray Grimstone has posed:
With the strip of metal molded to begin the process of creating a blade, it takes only a single hard knock to free it, letting it clang against her oversized anvil. A long, lupine ear swivels then, catching the sound of someone approaching. It isn't the usual Heartless that people sent to do their dirty work, so it draws her attention.

Turning, the beast takes in the arrival, sweeping him with her eyes. It's one of those intense sort of gazes that look up from the feet to the face. The armor, she recognizes. "Lord Seith." She regards him with an incline of her head, although something about the set of her muzzle suggests that there isn't as much respect in the words as one might think.

The state of his armor has her eyes narrowing, a low growl in the back of her chest. There were a number of people who wore such elaborate sets of armor, which offered quite a lot in the means of defense. However, repairing them sometimes meant a great deal of work. Fine craftsmanship which needed to be reproduced over and over again when plates were too damaged for normal repairs.

"So, it takes the wizard being trapped in his own tin can to bother showing his face down in the dungeons." She smirks, her eyes lingering on his face as she speaks, pulling her gloves off in a manner that is so slow that it must be intentional. It's likely some measure of his beauty that irritates her, and the fact that he had sent underlings to her until now. "Too good to bring your armor yourself?" She asks, folding her arms across her chest. Her strange hybrid tail swishes behind her.

She hasn't really agreed to help him.

Seith has posed:
Seith continues to regard the beast with neutrality as she speaks his name, noting the way in which she inclines her head. The man continues to walk towards one of the empty work benches, and very slowly takes off his gauntlets. They're heavy, but show incredible dexterity - speaking much of the original smith's amazing skill. He glances to the side at her as she tones that little growl. He knows that this armor is a lot of work to keep in shape.

"So it would appear." Seith answers Disarray with not a single measure of anger filling his voice. It doesn't mean he doesn't get a little irritated when someone speaks like that to him, but he can understand her anger. Unlike most Shadow Lords however, he doesn't really think himself 'above' this beastly woman, no matter how much he might be one of the stronger and older Shadow Lords that walk this castle. When she adds that question about whether he was 'too good' to bring his own armor or not however, the man quickly glances aside at her again.

His gauntlets hit the table with a heavy sound, even though he didn't drop them. When his lithe hands come out into view, one might wonder how a thin elf like him can even /wear/ such a heavy armor. "I am afraid that on previous occassions, I've been quite busy. Unfortunately, my work does not end when I arrived at this castle. I am always roaming these halls for this castle's secrets, and reading its books for the enigmas they might hold."

The man reaches up and slowly picks up the horned headpiece that graces his head, allowing his hair to fully come down. This too gets set down onto the table. "I do appologize if my lack of presence may have angered you, Disarray." But hey, at least he knows her name. "I would truly appreciate the assistance. I might be able to do it myself, but I am afraid I'd scar the armor far more than it has been."

Disarray Grimstone has posed:
The wizard has two things against him when it comes to the beast: The first is his appearance, the second is his arte. What he does is a bit too close to the sort of enchantment that brought her to become what she is today, and that raises the heckles on her neck.

As he moves, she follows with those predatory eyes. Most of those within the castle don't realize that she had ever been human, and it would be hard to imagine the girl she, by all rights, should be if it weren't for that foul magic. Yet, those eyes that follow him are quite human, looking odd in such a beastly vissage.

His reaction is enough to at least earn him some grudging measure of her regard. The noblewoman within can't just ignore the apology. "Hrm." She sheaths her claws, hiding them within the soft flesh of her feline fingers. While she doesn't have to like him, at least he hasn't earned her wrath, for now. Instead, the beast steps forward, circling him to get a better look at the damage.

"While I understand that you're quite busy, your armor will work much better if it can be properly fitted. Before now, I've had to guesswork around it whenever this suit came in." While some might be uncertain about touching someone else, Disarray presses her hand against a bent piece of the armor, crouching somewhat as she reaches for a tool from her belt. "Hold still." This is all being done behind the poor Elf, who likely has to just trust that she isn't going take advantage of his vulnerability.

There is a tug, and a sound of metal bending, then she starts to knock against part of the backplate with a small tool, sending reverberations up along his spine.

Seith has posed:
The foul sorcery this mage commands might however give the beast something she doesn't currently have. The ability to feel less a beast and more a beauty. To regain her former visage, even if it's nothing but an illusion. The man's eyes lose a little bit of their strain when the beast finally sheathes her claws, though it's hardly much of a change with his otherwise fairly calm demeanor. Still, being what she is, it's likely that she can pick up on it.

"I can remain for measurements, if that would be to your liking." The man answers Disarray, and continues to work on the arms of his suit. Reaching around the shoulderguards to undo the bonds that keep the rest of the arms attached to the rest of the armor. While there is damage to the armguards, they are nowhere as bad in shape as his chest and back. And it's his back where the armor closes. But for all of his 'movement' in his arms, his back remains firm and erect, not moving the least while she works on the backplate.

The armguards coming to drop onto the table, she can now see the black material he wears underneath the armor. Surely some kind of magical material of sorts, for it seems too thin to really withhold much of the kinetic force a strike to that armor would behold, although the armor itself has some padding of its own of course. As she proceeds to work on his back, and might proceed to open the back, she might see that some of the tears bit through the armor as well, and that there's small trickles of blood dripping from gashes and wounds. Nothing major, obviously - and had it not been for the armor, he clearly would have suffered a far worse fate.

"Thank you for your assistance." Seith whispers, tilting his head slightly to look behind himself, to get a better 'look' at the Beast. He trusts her to not try and kill him. There's no gain to be had, or so he believes.

Disarray Grimstone has posed:
It takes a few more tugs and taps, but eventually the beast manages to pull free a bit of bloody, twisted metal which had been preventing the armor from releasing properly. She pushes herself to her feet, looking at the bit of shrapnel in the glow from the forge. "You should be able to take it off now." As she shifts, her eyes snap to one of the cages, where a voice can be heard, whimpering. An instant later, that bit of scrap is flung towards the cage, clanging off of the wall not far from the head of a boy who remains in shackles, his leg twisted at an odd direction.

"If you come back when it's done, I can do a proper fitting. There's not much good in lurking right now, and I'm sure your books are more interesting." She plucks up one of the gauntlets, examining the damage, scowling at it to avoid scowling at him instead. "This is going to take hours." The beast grunts, then glares at her 'assistant'. "Get some scrap star metal from the store room." The prisoner hesitates, his hammer hovering over a chest plate. "Now!" The beast roars.

The armor is sent sprawling as the man goes scampering off to fetch the required materials. "It's so hard to kidnap good help these days." She still needed to track down that smith that she'd marked, but she wanted to give him a few days to show up before she decided to take matters into her own claws.

Absently, the beast looks at the blood on her fingers, and then licks over her hand, looking far too much like an overgrown cat. "You might consider not bleeding all over my forge." She might have that strange potion the Shaman had given her to help clean her fur, but she didn't trust him. Instead, the beast raises a gauntleted fist towards the mage. It seems, for a split second, like she's going to attack him, but then the dragon on her gauntlet spits a dark cloud towards him. The mist seems to carry with it some minor healing capabilities, although surely not the sort one would expect from a white mage.

Reaching for one of the shelves, she tosses a towel at Seith, "I would appreciate not having to clean up after your mess."

Seith has posed:
When Disarray indicates he can take off his armor, the man does so. He doesn't reach back with his hands, but instead uses his telekinetic powers to draw it open. The armor comes off cleanly, and it isn't long before the man stands there in a black body-fitting leg and chest clothing. It's indeed torn in some places, and the man casually draws it up from his back. It's amazing how none of the crimson touches his hair. Eternal elven beauty? Or maybe just the animators being lazy.

With a bit of confusion, the man watches the interactions between the 'beast' and the 'assistant'. "Hrrrm, indeed." Seith mumbles. If these men were more powerful, or had enough guts to band together, they might stand a chance. But all of them just cower from the beast. Spineless! Her comment about his wounds draw his attention to himself instead, and even as the beast spins her own regenerative ability over him, the man does the same, laying a hand to his chest and letting powerful dark magic flicker over his body in order to further heal some of the wounds.

With his other hand, he catches the towel and lays it to his own back. "Neat gauntlet." The man declares in regards to the dragon-gauntlet. He'd flinched a little, but that'd quickly settled again. It's only human to flinch when someone 'seems' like they might attack you. "The books are only as interesting as the 'real' world events or theories they depict." Meaning, 'this place has its own interesting story'. "Still, hardly be it for me to get in your way."

Disarray Grimstone has posed:
The beast begins to gather pieces of his armor, setting them next to one another across a work table so that it looks like a corpse, pieced together bit by bit. From a drawer nearby, she tugs a crude drawing of the completed suit, probably drawn the first time that it had come in for repairs. She pins it up onto a board along the wall, then pulls over a rolling stool to start looking through the damaged bits of platemail. "Difficult battle?" She asks, by means of continuing the conversation. As much as people tended to avoid her, the beast didn't /seem/ anti-social.

Someone used to watching the way humans interact might notice how her eyes try not to settle too much on him. Looking at him for too long is enough to make her irritated at his beauty. One couldn't fault those who had it, but for someone turned into a monster, it's like looking into sunlight. "Dragoons?" She guesses, turning the backplate over, looking at the way that the metal had gotten pushed inward to cause the damage. Either that, or he'd gotten stabbed in the back, which isn't uncommon for Shadow Lords. They had enough of /that/ going around.

The comment about her gauntlet draws one flash of green eyes, "A reward for my service during the fall of the France." Some small shred of that world remained, but much of it had been brought down into the darkness. Disarray had been the cause for a good chunk of that damage, and she seemed quite proud of that fact. "Magic is the business of enchanters in my realm, so I wasn't born with that gift. I make good use of it, though." The dragon on her gauntlet croons, as if it were some sort of living thing, curling it's tail about her forearm.

"I'm not fond of enchanters." Her eyes look away again, her hand wiping a rag over the twisted metal, cleaning off blood and sweat so she can see just what needs to be done. The 'assistant' returns, and seeing her with her back turned, he glances at one of the cells, then to Seith. Clearly, he didn't look nearly as intimidating as the beast, so the man mouths the words 'help me' at the Elf.

Seith has posed:
"Indeed." Seith answers her. "A rather harsh one at that. But I think it left enough of a mark." The man leans back against a nearby workbench that she's not currently occupying and crosses his arms. "Hrrrm - not Dragoons. Magic actually." He explains. Which might sound strange, for this man is a mage himself, and would be 'presumed' to be quite capable to taking care of other magical opponents. "A group of masters in the element of ice. Although your guess is not too far off if you consider the size of the ice-spears they were throwing around." The man tilts his head to look over at the 'assistant' wandering around while he continues to listen to the beast. "France? Ah, that place. I hear parts of it are still around. I guess the Princess of Heart for that place has not been found yet."

The man lifts up a piece of scrap and inspects it for a moment, before setting it down again. "Enchanters? Sorcery then." The movement of the dragongauntlet draws the man's attention, and he even raises his brow in amused surprise. "Living armor?" He asks, "Or a cursed artifact?" Expecting Disarray to know the difference between the two. "I am afraid I am not an 'enchanter' in the common term. My scope of sorcery lies only within a few areas of expertise. Illussions and Dreams are my main fort�s."

He then notices the assistant's return, and tilts his head at the man. He patiently watches him glance between the cells and Seith, and then mouthes 'help me' at him. Seith grins... and then begins to laugh. "Help you?" He is looking straight at the assistant. "Why would I 'help' you? You pitiful man, help yourself. This place is filled with weapons and metal. Yet here you are, asking 'me' for 'help'? Tsssk, you disgust me." Seith tilts his head away and makes a dismissive motion with his hand.

Disarray Grimstone has posed:
The beast nods her head once, seeming content that she'd been 'close enough' with her guess. A year ago, she wouldn't have had a clue about what caused such a thing, but her time training has turned her into a more than proficient blacksmith. There isn't much else to do when you can't go outside without scaring the populous. "At least it wasn't fire. A hot enough fire spell can melt almost any armor, and you don't want that next to your skin." Another quick glance takes in the thin layer of clothing, as if that offered any protection.

Disarray snorts at the mention of the Princess of Heart. "No leads. Otherwise I would have had her by her scrawny little blonde bimbo princess neck by now." She isn't far from the truth when you look at many Princesses, since they do tend to fall into that particular stereotype. It just so happens that she's wrong about the princess from her own world, but as Belle has all but vanished, she has no way of knowing that.

The dragon on her forearm yawns, as if her anger were boring, fluttering wings before settling again, looking still as a piece of wrought metal. "Living armor. Can't say I know much about the magic that made it, but it's useful." Fierce eyes find him when he mentions his own particular magical skills, "Well, this isn't an illusion." The beast waggles her fingers, then sets her hand back down on the table, growling low in her chest. "When I find that enchantress, she's going to wish she'd never trifled with me."

An ear flicks, and then the smith is left to watch the interaction between the dark-haired elf and the prisoner. "I think I'm just about done with you for today." She mutters, getting to her feet again to prowl over to the prisoner. It doesn't take long for her to grab him by his chains and drag him into one of the cells, the sounds of metal scraping as she locks him against the wall. "Try something like that again, and I'll go pay a visit to that pretty little cottage of yours. The one the rest of your family still lives in. I think they'd appreciate a house guest like me, don't you?" The man whimpers, then hangs his head.

With that, she stalks back out of the cell, slamming the door behind her.

Seith has posed:
"Hrrrm, yes. Fire can be quite troubling. Though I rarely get 'burnt' like that." Seith points out, stroking a hand over the black undercloth in a rather casual manner, before he decides that with it being partially ruined, there's no point to keeping it on. So the man slowly draws it up over his chest, revealing a battleworn body. Scars. Some rather hideous and life-threatening. Yet the man doesn't even bat an eye at them. It doesn't look particularly pretty.

"Pity." He comments about the princess. "And I figured it wasn't. Though by your comment, I presume that you did not always look that way. The hatred for enchanters and it not being an illusion and all." The man pushes off from the worktable and looks over his own armor while Disarray decides to drag the smith back into the cells. He touches the metal with one hand's tender touch, and then turns again and moves back out of the way.

"Pitiful little things." Seith declares with no real tone of caring about all of this. "Living armor though. Do you know who made it by chance? I am rather curious about such magics. There's few who manage to trap spirits in blacksmithed items like that."

Disarray Grimstone has posed:
With the last cell now occupied again, the room takes on an eerie sort of feeling. The firelight from the forge reflects on the stone walls, but there is no sound from those three chambers. They don't dare to make any sounds, not willing to risk the wrath of the monster beyond. The beast moves over to toss the set of armor that the man had been working on back on a pile. Clearly, she has more than enough work to keep her and her slaves busy. Yet, the armor of Shadow Lords takes a higher priority than that of underlings.

"I should be getting a new one soon enough. One that will be a bit easier to control." Unlike some Shadow Lords, Disarray had no power other than intimidation over those that served her. Then again, intimidation can work wonders, when it's aimed at someone a person cares about. She knows enough of a broken heart to know how to twist it and use it to her advantage.

On her way back to her work bench, Disarray looks up, only to pause in her tracks briefly. Her eyes linger on his bare chest, and on the scars displayed over his flesh. It's a gaze that lasts just a bit too long before she looks away again, the monster pulling her chair over fettching a set of finer tools to tap out the dents in his armor. Part of her doesn't want to discuss her own past, so she only growls under her breath. "Weren't you a different person before you came here?" The beast asks in return, one green eye swiveling in his direction. "Everyone was, and there's no going back."

Tap. Tap-tap. The monster begins to clear dents from his armored gloves, her fingers quite dexterous despite their size, and her eyes keen on the task. The dragon on her forearm yawns and settles it's head down against forepaws, falling still as if it were never alive at all. "I don't know. The Shadow Lord who gave it to me was killed not long afterwards. Don't even remember his name." She shrugs absently, as if she didn't particularly care one way or the other.

Seith has posed:
Seith doesn't speak when he catches her staring at his chest, and casually looks to the cells behind her. He wonders how often she has to 'toss' those broken 'products' out. He doesn't comment on the 'new' smithy and waits for her to stop staring before he looks her way.

"Before I came here? I spent a long time like I am now. But yes, in the far past, I was a different person. Naive and foolish like any ol' human or otherwise." Seith explains his origins a little, not really going into the subtleties of things. Besides, what's the point? It's not like what he had in the past will ever come back. "It's as you say. There's no going back."

The man's attention is drawn to the work she does. It's a dexterity you might not expect from someone like her. You'd expect this beast to be carrying around a giant axe or something. "Pity." Seith notes. "Maybe I can find some of their work in the empty rooms."

Disarray Grimstone has posed:
With neither of them willing to talk much about their origins, Disarray is content to let that topic fall by the wayside. With her tools, she plucks out a piece of mangled platemail over one finger, tossing it to the scrap pile where it clinks down along with other metal. She would have to re-forge the damaged part. "It will take me a few hours to get this finished. You can check back tonight." It's not that her tone is dismissive, but she's quite used to working alone, or only with the company of her prisoners.

The beast reaches for a bit of the strange dark-blue metal that the prisoner had brought from the store room, clasping the ingot into a set of tongs before setting it into the forge to heat. "I wish you luck with that. I have no interest in those sort of spells." Her irritation for enchanters shows with a small flick of her tufted tail.

Seith has posed:
"I'll leave you be then." Seith answers Disarray, stepping away from the female beast, glancing back only for a moment. "You are wearing one of 'those' sort of spells. Though you might find interest in the things 'my' spells can do. Think about it." The man declares, before truly stepping up the heavy stone stairs and leaving the smithy.