ic/ooc: reaver training

[hlif]

So I heard you wanna be a Reaver, kid.

Thanks to a wild night out on the outskirts of Nevarra, during a drinking contest, Asher drank something that happened to have the ritually prepared blood of a dragon in it. He passed out for two days and woke up a Reaver. Asher is more than happy to teach others this discipline.

This post is for anyone wanting to come to Asher for Reaver training so we can discuss it oocly and then have some ic stuff if you want to do more without it being spammed in any of the communities!

To become a Reaver will require Asher to have some sort of CR with your character - we can handwave the getting to know you parts, he hangs around the tavern and sparring ring often enough that they've probably already met.  Chantry-aligned characters would take more time to convince him, if they wanted him as a teacher, because he just doesn't get on with them.  Ideally it would involve going with Asher to procure dragon blood (from dragonlings unless you managed to get some from fighting a high dragon in any areas during plots) before he goes off to prepare it.  (Of course he asked the guy he got it from how he made such amazing moonshine he's not a total savage.)  Then you drink it, probably collapse, and Asher is proud of you.

If you want to work in obstacles, to draw out the training in the early stages or at any point, grab me here. 
 

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[hlif]

"Steady heat," Asher reminds him, moving to stretch since one of the healers told him that he has to make sure his body heals properly and that means keeping the flesh and muscles supple, stopping anything from settling into the wrong position for too long. Easier said than done. Maybe, if he somehow lives this long, he'll do this in the hold with some of the young lads since he knows that the warriors up there have enough of an interest in it if they truly show promise. Berserkers are more common in the mountains holding to their closeness with the dwarves but there's no reason they can't blend the two together.

Rage and pain are tied so tightly after all, and if both could be mastered at once, and if they can harness the spirits to fight with them the way he knows some lowlander warriors do but better… (And it would be better, because they know spirits better, they don't fear them, they respect them, but other thoughts for other days, his mind is wandering the way it has since he got ill and he settles again.)

Peering into the mixture, he clicks his tongue and nods. "That'll be ready. Give it another stir, let it cool for a minute. Take a moment." Take a moment because Asher didn't get that, because Asher has always been taken by the arm for someone that seems so much a force of nature; pulled out of his house with the door shut on him, meeting Melisende in the tavern that first night and joining up because he had no other place, downing a drink that hadn't smelt too much different to anything else in his addled state. "It'll burn but so will everything else, and it'll hurt like a knife in the throat all the way down. To meet a Reaver is to change your fate - people pray they will never meet us on the battlefield for their fates are the ones changed, and not for the better." It's the last advice he can give before he nods. The blood will cool, and the blood should be as hot as it would be in the vein and the heart, at least to Asher's thinking and his memory of it, and Kain might start running hotter after he drinks this mixture anyway so he should get used to it now.

[dragoon_pride]

Kain is sure to follow that advice, ensuring the heat is nice and steady, that the contents of the mixture are evenly warmed. The whole thing is uniformly heated after a while, and he looks at it with a nod. Whatever happens next, well… he’s about to find out. He’s about to make one of the most important changes he ever has, one which will strengthen him like never before. He takes care as he stirs it, removing it from the fire to cool.

Seeing Asher’s approval, he realizes that the time has come. He’s had a lot of warning about what to expect, but that sense of anxious anticipation is there anyway. He hasn’t felt like this in a long time, not since the first ever battle he’d ever faced. But it’s a good thing, that kind of feeling. It’s the sort of thing that keeps a person from being blindly stupid about things. Kain holds up the mixture.

“I can handle a little burning. This is what I came for… what I was meant to be.” He can’t wait, now, to see how it’ll feel in the next battle he gets in. Nodding at Asher, he prepares to drink. “Whatever may happen next… thank you. I appreciate what you’ve done to get me this far.” Now it’s up to him to take the next step.

He puts the vial to his lips… and drinks. Immediately, he’s aware of just how hot it is, like fire scorching his throat. The burn is worse than hot food, worse even than Qunari alcohol. Despite that, he keeps gulping it down, feeling the warmth start radiating out from his chest, gradually spreading throughout his body. What starts as a tolerable warmth only grows all the hotter the more time that passes. It’s pure and total agony, like he’s suddenly burst into flames, and at first his eyes widen as he fears that it’s going wrong. His heart pounds wildly and his breath quickens, sweat pouring off of him as the blood continues to take hold, to change him.

He feels like he’s dying and yet... and yet at the same time, he’s never felt more alive.

[hlif]

What can a man do but watch? Last time he was blind drunk even for him but he's read about it because beneath everything else there's a hunger - maybe it began that night, or maybe it came with going to all the places he's been, knowing the world how he does - to know as much as he can. He folds his arms, Waits still and silent as any statue standing sentinel but the tension coils in his spine, ready to catch Kain should he need to, or ready to shout into the crystal for a healer though Asher knows that it'd be too late, that they'd be prolonging the inevitable if he sent for them. If Kain wasn't a rifter he'd say nothing, wait it out, put a knife to the back of his neck because that would be a kindness.

But that doesn't need to be the case here; Kain isn't showing the reactions that can go wrong immediately. Asher wasn't prepared, Asher had come off a hard job, too much drink, and everything else that comes with mercenary life. Hurtled into chaos.

"Meeting a Reaver on the battlefield changes a person," Asher says, aware that his voice might sound distant. He remembers the Boneflayers in those days, as if he was underwater only the water was boiling. "And not for the better. That'll be you. Breathe through it, accept the pain, make it yours."

[dragoon_pride]

The pain becomes unbearable, excruciating as it covers every inch of his body. He feels like he’s burning up, boiling alive, the fire burning outside him, surrounding him, and at the same time burning within, frying up everything inside. He almost wants to scream, but holds it back, growling and grimacing instead. He groans, agonized and panting heavily, the sweat pouring off him as the heat continues to overcome him, alter him into something more than he once was. Asher seems so far away when he speaks… The whole world is distant now… nothing about his surroundings seems real anymore. It’s like it’s all hidden behind a blood red fog.

Breathe through it, accept the pain, make it yours.

Breathe. Kain focuses on his breath, trying to take control and steady it. His heart feels like it’ll pound out of his chest at this rate. He takes one deep, long breath. This pain is his own. This pain is his own. This pain is his, he owns it… this pain does not own him. It’s his pain to claim and to bear and to turn against his enemies.That’s the way of the Reaver after all, to gain strength from pain… This is only the beginning.

Kain moans, but then suddenly something changes in his expression. He feels an immense surge of power, a strength unlike anything he’s ever felt before. It reminds him of flying, soaring recklessly through the air… For a brief instant, he suddenly grins wildly, adding a burst of sharp, sudden laughter, very unlike anything he’s ever done before. “Incredible!” That’s all he says, before his eyes roll back and he collapses to the ground, the dragon’s blood taking over to finish remaking him.