blackbladebitch | 010

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010 - video

[This goes up on Monday, before Sylvanas goes after Elric. It's gloriously public, because this is Elric's way of saying "publish and be damned, Ardent". Elric looks like he's in a good mood. An alarmingly good mood. Because he's in that cheerfully nihilist state of mind where he just doesn't care anymore.]

I have promised to Ardent and to Neil Howie a full accounting of what passed with our librarian dwarf. And so here follows the accounting. I expect that afterwards the wardens may petition for my demotion [unspoken: as they have for others recently], or ask that I be cast off at the nearest port of call, or that my sword be destroyed. I submit myself to your [massive irony] keen judgement and discerning tempers without complaint. [Read: I don't give a fuck what you think.]

That I am in possession of an enchanted blade called Stormbringer is known to some of you. Well—now it is known to all of you. It was a blade forged by Chaos in aeons long past in my own world, and it is my saviour and my curse. I have been able to survive without it here on the Barge, but many and long have been the years where I came to rely on Stormbringer for my strength—Stormbringer, and the souls that it drank.

Aye, Stormbringer is the blade that brought me the sobriquet "Stealer of Souls" in my native world. It accompanied me here to the Barge, though I thought it lost, and I have kept it secured by means magical and mundane in my cabin.

But when I heard that Narvin was missing and learned that Ardent might be responsible, I took Stormbringer up again, for I feared that Ardent might have magical means of protecting himself, brought from his own native world—we had spoken once of a metal called octiron, and I thought he might have at last found a means of shaping it into something dangerous. And as ill-luck would have it, I slew Ardent in attempting to subdue him, and Stormbringer drank his soul.

And that is why he woke from death as a mindless body. I restored his soul to him while the good doctor Svetlana watched, and I have expressed my regret time and again for what I have done, though he does not accept it. Consider this public statement as abject an apology as I may muster, and wardens, I ask you all to do as you will.

Be warned, however: I have tried to destroy Stormbringer. I have tried to cast it away. But it is indestructible and whenever I have cast it from me, it has always returned. None but the Lords of Chaos themselves may destroy it, I think, though I should like to see you try.

[He grins terribly at the camera. NO HE'S NOT DONE YET.]

Now, having said that—in the week since Ardent's death, there have been three attempts on my life—one by Drake Stone, one by Omega, and one by some boy who kept shouting about proving himself. I shall second Omega's entreaty: whoever is behind this [ARDENT], face me yourself, coward! Send not these unwilling puppets into my path, for I do not wish to harm them. I have had enough of this.

Aye, I begin to think I have had enough of the Barge in general.

[He sneers a little, and shuts the camera off.]

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Is this a flood?

[Please be a flood, the tone says.]

[Elric shakes his head.]

'Tis no flood.

[He shakes his head also and steps aside silently - the room is dark and bitterly cold compared to the hallway.]

Your sword. It's been onboard the whole time you have?

[Elric steps inside, clearly unbothered by the cold.]

Aye. When I arrived in my cabin, it was there, as if it had never left my side.

[He pulls the door shut - the thump of stone echoes in the high ceiling and the room gets significantly darker. Arthas rounds on Elric, eyes faintly blue in the darkness.]

You didn't think that might be something important to mention to somebody?

Edited 2011-05-19 03:35 (UTC)

[No flinching from Elric.]

I had hoped that it might never come to pass that I had to reveal it. A mistake.

You're damn right it was.

[Still staring the same way he was over the network, but now he's stalking in circles around Elric as well.]

Where is it now?

Where it ought to be—safe under locks magical and mundane.

[Still not flinching.]

Then it's not safe. There is no lock you can put a weapon like that under to secure it - even if the man with the only key is dead, even if the lock is unbreakable, even if it is guarded and cursed and unreachable by mortal means - a weapon like that is not safe and will not be safe so long as it exists where there are people!

[The outburst seems to drain him - by the end, he's roaring but looks exhausted and terrified. He draws himself back up and is composed again in the after-echoes, but not quite fast enough.]

Edited 2011-05-19 17:02 (UTC)

[Elric starts off listening impassively, but by the end even he looks a little rattled around the edges by Arthas's increasing rage. So he can't help snapping a little with his own response.]

Then humanity shall never be safe, for Stormbringer existed long before the Bright Empire was a gleam in my people's eye, and it will persist long after I and my world are obliterated from the minds of men. Were I to cast it away, it would return—I have done so many times, and it has. Were I to try and destroy it, I would fail. It is bound to me and no matter how I may wish it away, I have no choice. Wherever I go, it must accompany me, and I can do no more than to try and bind it with the magics that I have.

Have you tried all of that?

All that and more.

[Put that in your pipe and smoke it, buddy.]

[Undeterred:]

I want to see it.

[A hard look.]

Why?

I had one. It didn't end well.

[And now it's Elric's turn to be O_O. He stares at Arthas, partly thinking that bringing him to see Stormbringer is the worst idea ever, and partly that maybe it might help both of them. Somehow.]

Very well.

[He turns on his heel to lead the way back to his cabin.]

[Arthas follows him like a very stompy shadow :|]

[Once in Elric's room, the albino locks the door behind them. He goes to the heavy chest at the foot of his bed and unlocks the eight padlocks that hold it shut, then murmurs a series of incantations in Melnibonéan. Then he pauses before opening the chest.]

Are you sure of this?

[Arthas' body language seems to suggest he's fighting the urge to bolt, but his expression is set.]

Yes.

[With some reluctance, Elric throws back the lid of the chest. Inside, Stormbringer lies scabbarded, cushioned amid folds of black fabric. There is a faint sound, like a bow drawn across a violin string, then silence. Elric makes no move to pick it up.]

[Arthas freezes as if suddenly paralyzed. A strangled noise that might have been the beginning of a word falls from his lips but he doesn't appear to be aware of it. The room has narrowed to a pinhole.

When he'd first seen Frostmourne, it had looked like salvation.]

What happens if someone else takes it up?

Edited 2011-05-22 00:31 (UTC)

[Elric watches Arthas's face carefully.]

No one has ever tried. But I think it would not accept another master, not now.

[His face splits into a jovial grin and his eyes go empty and dark like a sinkhole falling in. He claps Elric on the shoulder amiably.]

Another master? Do you assume that's how it thinks of you?

[Elric laughs, bitterly.]

I think I know better than that. It is simply a convenient word.

Then what would happen?

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