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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[dragoon_pride]

Kain shakes his head. “I didn’t want to alarm anyone.” It’s also such the typical Kain way, he’s done it many times, leaving the party on a whim (whether being controlled back home or for other reasons during the war)... or simply leaving home without any notification to anyone. There’s also the fact that he’d been even closer to the people back home, having grown up with them… and even then he’d still not bothered to tell them anything. He doesn’t need anyone trying to talk him out of something he’s set on, either. “That, and I’m sure this will be fine.”

Sure enough. Who knows, though. He’s trying not to let any apprehension get in the way of this path he knows he wants to walk. He pauses, about to start mixing things together. “Do these ingredients need to be heated or anything? Prepared in a certain order?” He’s no alchemist, after all, so he wants to be certain he’s got it right.

[hlif]

"Good thing I know spirit healers," Asher mutters under his breath because as much as this is getting right with the gods for him, fulfilling an obligation he's been dragging his arse on, there's his reputation on the line too, as well as that of the company should something go wrong in all this. Letting at least Christine know even after the fact might help, because he really doesn't know how it's actually going to go. "Well, I'd been drinking. Drinking a lot even for me and I'm a bigger lad than you. And I was just off a job that left me in a state, not as bad as the one you saw me in but not ideal and I'm here." Good solid reassuring manly slap to the shoulder? Good solid reassuring manly slap to the shoulder.

"Heat the blood first, gently, you don't want to boil or even simmer it but you want it warm. Warm as it'd be in the dragon. You want the deathroot cut fine as you can but make sure you don't inhale it. Infusion primer goes last, once the rashvine's dissolved in and it's smooth. Take it off the heat before you add it. Add that carefully but down it while it's still warm."

[dragoon_pride]

Yep, that's all the reassurance that Kain really needs. He's past a point where he'd question this, past a point of hesitating. Who knows, maybe the dragon blood will work with him really well, given his status as a dragoon. Either that or the foreign dragon-like influence will react and make it worse. He doubts anything will go wrong at this point, but even if it does... If it does, he has little to lose. "Even if something happens, it's what I want. I've not been more sure of anything in a long time."

Not since he'd left for Mount Ordeals, really. That had been his first moment of real conviction after all of the mind control, going off to redeem himself. Now doing this here feels right as well.

"Right... thank you. That's not so bad to follow." Really, even for someone like him who's no expert in potions-making, he can manage. He starts up, lighting a small fire, making sure that's going just right before he starts to get the blood warming and the ingredients cut. "At least it seems I have the advantage of being sober. Though maybe it's something better done drunk, who knows?" He knows others might look at this as a somewhat crazy idea to go for, but he sure doesn't see it that way.

[hlif]

"You'd better not get me kicked out the Inquisition for getting one of their rifters killed." Maybe Asher should've asked permission but would he be Asher if he asked permission? No. No he would not. He's the guy that rips off shirts in crowded taverns and goes off to wrestle bears and wins.

Now he's the guy that makes men from other worlds into Reavers. It'll be something to add to the resume he supposes, another angle for Melisende and Liadan to work to employers. Not a man to shy from risk or opportunity is our Asher, that's what they'll say.

"No, not better when you're drunk." Kain has perhaps seen Asher more serious than most but Asher has a responsibility to him, warrior to warrior, and as something of a teacher. That requires a certain level of seriousness that he doesn't usually display. "Scared my crew half to death when it happened, and they've seen me through bad things. Melisende knew me longer than any of the rest of them, when I joined the company we were both in before the Boneflayers, before the Boneflayers ever existed. Set a bone drunk, get in a fistfight drunk, go up and ask for a shag drunk. Not this. You're not you after this. You'll get to know."

Asher would have chosen this. And he doesn't regret it, not exactly, not when being a Reaver is the reason he has this reputation by now, and it's kept him alive ever since but he does regret that he didn't have a choice in the matter.

[dragoon_pride]

"I don't intend to die here and now. I'd like to think myself strong enough to survive this." Kain talks as he's carefully mixing the ingredients, warming the blood, getting the infusion and rashvine added one by one. He's always known it's pretty much his fate to go down in battle someday, again, the same way he'd died in the gods' war. It's not happening here and now, he refuses to let it. Hopefully this confidence won't be misplaced. He'd hate to think of ending it all like this.

This is no time to back off, and any doubts might just make this harder. Kain appreciates the seriousness coming from Asher, really, for something like this he's sure that it's needed. It's a choice he's made, and he's ready to see it through. That's the most important part of it all, the fact that it's his own decision to do this.

"I understand. It's better to approach this sort of thing with a clear mind." The ingredients are starting to blend in the mixture, gradually liquefying. Looks like it's mixing up pretty well. "I'll face this with the same determination I've put into every battle I've fought..."

[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.