Half-Demon Channeler
I was so relieved there was at least one person who's into both of these fiction fields.
Fish Foot Note: There are spoilers in here if readers of the book series haven't read up to Book Six, Lord of Chaos. I didn't state a spoiler earlier because there's not really an indication of specific locations there, I believe. The WOT series belong to Robert Jordan and Capcom owns DMC3. I own Thwane, though. Ryen is a characterization of a person that already exists; he shouldn't be hard to identify…
The Culture-Shock: First Sights
Vergil felt a barrel or two cushioning his back from the wooden wall of the dark place. The rebound was not enough to throw him down to the dusty stone floor, but he still crumpled down like a plastic skeleton on his left side; he still held Yamato, naked and exposed to vulnerable flesh.
He decided to keep his weapon and examine his surroundings. Breathing in room temperature, he snorted the air back out when he found that it smelled like fish. He turned to inspect a barrel and knock it a few times on its rounded side, testing its contents.
There was ale – or at least something alcoholic – in that wooden container. He walked away from it and began looking for a way out of the room; the more he smelled fish the less he wanted to know where it came from.
A flight of stone steps along a corner ascended to a horizontal door. He had no reason to hurry, but he hated the smell.
Vergil took precautions, and with that a peek out of the entrance underneath which he hides himself from revelation. He can see a variety of footwear; bare feet, boots, clogs and sandals are the most discernible.
The feet were all either walking or standing in their place, or dangling or curved from a bent-knee position from their seats. Seeing no fancy footwear typically worn by noblemen or people with higher rank, he decided it was safe to step outside as subtly as possible.
Then again, there was the matter of the owner of the bar or inn. It is an inn, alright.
The lazy-looking innkeeper pretended not to have seen a disturbance even if he had. Clearly he avoided trouble, for he asked Vergil when he approached: "Good day, my lord. Were you looking for accommodation within the Paper Anchor?"
Instincts snapped in. Vergil scrambled for ideas of how to act in a place like this.
"That would have worked if I had the money," he replied.
"Oh, surely a lord like yourself – or one I'd assume to be a lord – has more treasure than his threads are worth," the innkeeper stated.
"My story is not as simple as that, you see," Vergil told the dark-haired man as the one wearing an apron led him to a table for two.
"I resemble a lord, I'm sure, but my riches were gone the day I am old enough to stand on my two feet. The clothes and sword I had are the only remnants of my inheritance."
"By the Light; they made you stand on your own?"
"Not by their own will, though. Demons took them, not at once, but one capture can easily be as painful as the other." By the Light, he is becoming a raconteur.
The innkeeper gazed at a wall, digesting the word 'demons'. His lips looked like they would have been uttering 'trolls' or 'bollocks'. Either one, he appeared to believe the pale-haired man's story and keep things in ease anyhow.
"You wouldn't mind sleeping in the common room, do you? I mean, you can line up some chairs and lie down on the surface; I don't want you to fall off tables no matter how long they are."
He showed no specific emotion. "That is kind of you."
"I think of myself as conscientious sometimes, keeping a lodging spot for wanderers or peddlers roaming faraway or foreign lands. But I think most of myself as a man called Ryen Anmer," he spoke seemingly to Vergil's gloves. Half the time his mind did not seem to be present.
Being a lord might mean he had to have hailed from a house of some sort, so he experimenting with fabrication.
"My name is Vergil. I am of House Sparda."
Ryen did not recognize that name, so he appears, but then again, he is not one to look brilliant.
"Still of noble blood, then, aren't you? For a moment I almost took you for High Lord Samon, but I highly doubt he'd come to my mess of an inn."
"Tell me about this High Lord." His commanding voice suited that of what he passes for.
"So far I know that he's a tall man with really short white hair and he used to rule Tear along with the other High Lords before the Dragon Reborn claimed the Stone. Rumor used to have it that he's actually one of the Forsaken – that one, Be'lal – and that an Aes Sedai escort to the Dragon Reborn had him balefired to oblivion. How wild was that story?"
Vergil shrugged, not knowing how to squeeze his finger on it.
There were women as well at the farmhouse, only that most of them wore clothes that fit a harsh and dry environment.
'He might know them,' Thwane guessed, but apparently the tall athletic man did not.
Dante felt a tension in the air; the sensation came from a tall, red-haired young man. From his coat design, he must be someone important.
"Taim, are these voluntary entrants?" he demanded apparently of a man with a large nose wearing something less grand but still of significant status.
The latter scanned the two new faces and left the group of men trying to perform some sort of telekinesis on their own. "I know of one way I think you'd prefer to find out," he stated; he stopped walking short of the two men's personal spaces.
He would have to make the decision on his own, whether to test the white-haired youthful-looking man or the indigent bard first.
Thwane backed a little when he came, but the Saldaean had him by the scruff of his neck. The white-haired fellow watched this with intrigue, unable to do anything at a short span of time while it happened.
He released the man roughly, but did not push him away. "Nope – he can't channel," he told the man in a fancy coat.
"Channel?" Dante asked. He stood his ground and felt something running through him like electricity through a circuit. No sooner than he gasped the man let go.
"This is nothing like I've encountered. The weaving is intricate, and there seems to be a bar to his ability to channel," said the man called Taim.
Weaving.
The word stirred something in his memory. The stranger in a trench coat looked familiar with his silvery-white hair, but putting it all together, he remembered the Netweaver, the Forsaken he encountered in Tear once. Moiraine – Light bless her soul, wherever she might be – used balefire on the Forsaken, but if the Dark One has found a way to resurrect a balefired man…
Rand did not know what to make of him. Lews Therin is making the strangest sorts of noise in his head, ranging from squeaking in fear to laughing with relief. He refused to let the madman's voice plague him and interfere with judgment.
"What's this channeling ability thing I've been hearing from you guys?"
His speech differs from that of the Seanchan. He had an accent about him that just tells how lightly he uses the language.
"He doesn't appear to be of this world," Taim told him.
The man concerned frowned; clearly this is not the first time he faces an awkward situation.
The other looked confused at this, obviously having never met anyone from another world, even after his life of venturing other lands.
"Do we have to explain everything?" Rand swallowed at the possibility of that.
Taim rolled his eyes and sighed; his role as a teacher has provided him some skills for dealing with the new and strange.
Vergil sat in a corner of the Paper Anchor, not only watching the happenings around him, but also eavesdropping on every conversation he found helpful and detailed. It was the best he can do when he wanted to rest unnoticed and learn of this otherworldly background at the same time.
Some human women tried to 'entertain' him, but he was not the type to sleep around with strangers. Besides, he only looked rich. He can promise them nothing.
He might have to get out of there as soon as possible if he wanted to find Dante and demand an explanation. It really wasn't likely that he did it, but Vergil could only blame him anyway. Arkham was too absorbed in his arts to have actually done something like this.
But to get out of here, he needed monetary wealth. There are various ways to get gold, silver or copper here, but while gambling is an easy choice, he did not even have a copper penny to begin with, and he would not ask the innkeeper for money no matter what the man said. He could try working for Ryen, though, but if he proved worthy, that would tie him to the place forever. He would not go as low as picking pockets or cutting purses, given the number of thief-takers in the area.
There is the chance that he can purchase a steed afterward anyways, other than traveling food, but where would he go from there? As uncomfortable as it is, crammed in a room with tens of other people with their imaginative chatter, traveling might make him miss the plate of smoked fish and the chop-and-fried potatoes Mishal – Ryen's significant other – served him. Besides, sleeping on lined-up chairs is more appealing than sleeping on rocky ground cushioned by a thin layer of canvas.
Ryen smiled at him from his part of the counter. He only nodded back as a result of not being attached enough to human customs.
'I'd hate to be ungrateful – there has to be something I could do for him before I leave without saying goodbye, and that already added to the owing,' Vergil considered.
He could probably roam around town in the middle of the night when Ryen sleeps. From there, he might be able to scavenge silver pennies that people carelessly dropped while bargaining with a wheat-supplier or a gold crown that, by chance, got stuck between the wheel and axle of an ox cart.
In the end, he did.
Guess where I found the name for the Tairen inn!
I wasn't sure whether it's parallel to the book, but this is fan fiction, after all. And when the hell would Dante get his Devil Trigger?
Couldn't figure out much for Arkham at the moment, though...