Rise

Closed thread, awaiting first post.

Malivic was sitting in a bar stall, reading a book while drinking very fine aged tea. It would have been said that he was calm, though the situation would not have called for such a thing. Men were rioting in the streets as soldiers beared down upon them. Homes were being destroyed as well as governmental buildings for tax and such. Indeed, the only places that seemed to have been untouched were the taverns and wench halls where he had to meet such unfavorable company. He shrugged at least they were punctual.

Well ... some of the time.

"Rohaan," he said coldly, still looking at his book, "You are late ..."

"My dear guests! It's so wonderful to see you all this evening!" The portly, bearded man at the head of the table lifted his fluted champagne glass, far from the chaos in the streets in the less fortunate parts of town. His guests, all nicely dressed, clean, and the upstanding, quiet type, raised their own glasses in a toast to themselves with a delicate, pastel laugh, sipping the expensive, bubbly liquid daintily. "I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate the anniversary of my marriage to my lovely wife," he said, drawing the quiet woman standing beside him closer to his rotund girth. There was something hungry and lustful in his eyes and clearly, the far-too-young woman was not even remotely in love with him and instead had the manner of someone enslaved. She did not smile.

The party of rich patrons, all laughing and conversing loudly, paraded into an ornate dining hall and took their seats as servers came by to bring them the first course. Like pigs from a trough, they ate, ignorant of the disparity happening not that far outside the portly man's guarded walls. Second course came, then the third, and then the main course arrived, complete with fresh rounds of drinks for everyone. The hall filled with intoxicating aromas of roasted pork with a delicate glaze, garnished on the side with plump cherry tomatoes and sprigs of rosemary. Of course, the guests raved about it, insisting to the head of the household that it was the finest meal they had ever eaten and that it was truly extraordinary. His wife ate in silence, as usual.

About midway through this course, the main door opened and a lithe, muscular blonde strode into the room with such confidence that no one had the gall to tell him he should be elsewhere. He clearly did not belong here, as he was visibly dirty, hadn't combed his shoulder length curls in an indistinguishable amount of time and thus simply tied them in a ponytail behind his head, and the clothes he wore were highly practical and very tarnished. The dinner conversation came to a dribbling halt as every patron craned their necks to ogle at the vagrant, and then picked up to a shocked whisper as he casually strolled to the center of the table, stabbed a stolen fork through a slice of pork, popped a cherry tomato in his mouth and, as he chewed a hunk of the meat (which was still stuck on the fork in a kind of barbaric display), marched right up to the head of the household.

"Excuse me," he said casually, reaching across to take the man's glass of brandy from right in front of him. The wife, who had been rather sullen the whole evening, allowed the faintest of smirks on her face, then, while her husband (and the rest of the party guests, for that matter) just sat with his mouth frozen into an 'o' shape, unsure if what he was seeing was reality or not. "Mm, lovely brandy you have here. Was this aged in wine barrels?" The blonde tipped the glass back and clanked it back down on the table. "Definitely wine barrels."

The portly man's rage had finally caught up to him as his round face flared red. "What do you think you're doing!!??" He shouted. "Just who do you think you are?! I'll have you locked in iron shackles till you rot, damn you!"
"To answer your questions," The blonde began, moving to someone else's brandy glass. "I'm borrowing a little of your excellent dinner, here, last I checked I was Rohaan Ja'aisen--don't you forget that now--and I think that's easier said than done with me, mate..."
"Guards!" The man shouted at the top of his lungs, which was Rohaan's cue to leave. Taking the slab of meat in his teeth and stashing the silver fork in his pocket, Rohaan took off with a laugh down the hall, his body morphing lightning-fast into a swift and sure spotted wild cat, then into a hawk once he found an open window, and off into the air he flew, leaving the angry shouts of men behind him.

---

Rohaan looked up to the sky as he made his way to a seedy bar downtown; he was late, but he'd be shocked if Malivic was surprised by now. Punctuality, like subtlety, wasn't really his thing. He took a seat next to Malivic, flashing his classic Rohaan grin, which was one of mischief and victory.
"My apologies. I was having brandy and pork with the Mayor himself. Ever seen the inside of his house? He has too many breakable things, if you ask me. But the brandy, Malivic, it was splendid. Found a banana, too." This, he pulled from his tarnished jacket and set down on the bar. Brazen robbery of upper-class citzens' dinner tables was a favorite pastime for Rohaan, not because he felt he had to, but mostly because he could. After, all the only thing better than breaking a law was rubbing it in the fat, jiggling face of an ignorant official. And the food was great.

"Never mind all that though. You've got that look on your face like you've got something to say, and I can only imagine you didn't send for me because you wanted to grab a drink in this lovely establishment. What's on your mind, Malivic?"

Malivic's gaze went up towards his comrade in arms, a glare steadily coming out as it dug into Rohaan. Honestly, Malivic would have done away with the strange shape-shifter had he not been useful to Malivic, but obviously that was not the case. Of all the advisors he had, Rohaan was most definately the best canidate of ones that had survived. After all, the rest of Rohaan's competition was dead.

"We're moving," Malivic said bluntly. There was no nonsense in his voice nor humor in his tone. "I'm meeting and old friend. You're coming with me to meet him."

The look Malivic gave to Rohaan at his explanation for his tardy arrival was a familiar one, though Rohaan knew it not just from him, but from others, too. Somewhere between disapproval and annoyance, he always thought. And when his long-time friend Berlin gave him that look, it was usually followed by a "Rheoaan Rohaan Rio Ja'aisen! You laugh now, but someday that will catch up with you. And I won't be there to back you up, either. Foolish boy." Malivic, apparently, was more the silent type, it seemed. The blonde took the fierce glare in stride, answering back with an unapologetic grin.

Rohaan had been criticized for his albeit unusual hobby of crashing dinner parties before by other folk who were for the resistance of the Provinces. Usually he was just scolded for being foolish, but some would criticize him further, saying that he was wasting his time indulging in hedonism when he could be actually using his natural talents for the benefit of the people, and that by choosing not to, he was stooping down to the level of the very people they sought to undermine. Rohaan never paid those people any heed; he knew in his heart that he wasn't in it for the lavish food and solid-silver cutlery that he could sell or trade as currency. Sure, that was an added bonus. In truth though, he did it for the pure act of defiance. Refusing to pay taxes was one thing, but what he did was public. It made the Provincials, as he called them, put a name to a face of someone who would resist them at every turn. It left them feeling violated, vulnerable, and altogether flabbergasted.

Rohaan had been doing this for some years now; he'd begun to make a name for himself and typically when he announced who he was, some people had a flicker of familiarity in their eyes as if they'd heard his name before. Others still knew his face when he walked into the room. The cooks and servants all had a name for him that eventually became quite commonplace, enough that even some rebels would refer to him as such--the Ghost Thief, they called him. Rohaan rather liked the sound of it.

Rohaan was about to order a drink (as if the stolen brandy wasn't enough. Rohaan could hold his liquor better than a lot of men larger than he) when Malivic informed them they were leaving already. He gave a sigh and rose from his seat, rolling his inhumanly cobaltic eyes. "Alright, alright. Who is this guy, and what should I know about him?" He asked, following Malivic out of the dimly lit bar.

Malivic's coat and hood covered him as they moved out. His eyes were even more fierce in the moon's gaze, shadows creeping around on his face to add some disturbing shadows. The sounds of shouting and rampaging citizens were still off in the distance when Malivic opened the door. On most nights, Bevin's clouded skys glowed ominously orange as fires from house burnings or effigy hangings and this was no different.

Most of the populace had deserted the Bevin, making it the least populated sector of Yolt. And of the seven regions of the human kingdoms, Yolt was the least organized, poorest, and financially divided to the point where families had started to line up near the garbage dumps of the rich noble houses. Malivic was barely hiding his disgust, not at the men, women or children who were begging for scraps, but at those that had been fortunate enough to have so much and yet cared so little.

Indeed, because of this, he had chosen this sector to plant the seeds of rebellion. There was no doubt that the poor here had been unfairly mistreated and the sparks of a revolution were all that was needed to ignite the people's hearts. Even so, Malivic knew he couldn't win a rebellion on the promise of food alone, he needed allies and men.

As they came across a tiny shack, Malivic finally turned back towards Rohaan.

"He is a ex-inquisitor, as I was. We worked together when we fought the Aethus near the deserts in the north . . . he's an exorcist."

The word exorcist was an eerie little detail that changed the tone for everything. Telepathic, telekinetic warriors forged in the flame of godly furvor, exorcists were an old name to be feared.

Before much could be done to prepare Rohaan, Malivic entered the Shack to reveal a meditating figure, clothed in white. His head was completely engulfed in a mask of metal, reflecting all images back out.

"Manajay, Malivic," The exorcist greeted. The mask added a buffer to the man's monotone voice, "And who is this . . ."