WELCOME TO THE FREE CITIES!

[abraxasmods]

WELCOME TO THE FREE CITIES!

Welcome to The Free Cities! The portal exits outside the capital city of Cadens. The first impression of the city is its sheer size. It sprawls out across the landscape like a great hulking beast at rest. The wall that encircles it barely contains it, the buildings of Cadens practically bulging against its restraint.

The air here seems thicker somehow, tinged with a scent that’s acrid and smoky. Smog hangs high over the city, belched out by smokestacks that tower over the industrial district. The desert stretches out behind it, dotted with towers and dust clouds that disappear into the horizon. Multiple gates lead inside and each is staffed by soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms that wave a steady stream of people through without appearing to pay much attention. People are coming and going almost all of the time, to and from the outposts and areas of activity around the city proper. It’s difficult to tell just what’s out there beyond the impression of tall metal structures and a great deal of labor. Wagons carrying travelers to Libertas and Aquila roll out from the Travel Post outside the city wall.

Anyone who can sense magic will notice a much lower concentration here. No one will be stopped or questioned at the gate, even if the soldiers seem to take note of the fugitives from Thorne.

The activity and sheer number of citizens can be overwhelming. It’s crowded and loud and feels constantly in motion with everyone talking and yelling over each other. It’s easy to get swept up in the ever-moving throng or find oneself ducking into the mouth of a narrow alley just to breathe.

Anyone who’s willing to make their way to the northern part of the city and Portham Hall will find Prime Minister Marlo Reiner available to receive them.

Comments

[gynvael]

[ A wry expression crosses his face. ] I assumed you got that from somewhere.

[ Just saying. Geralt lets Alucard trail off without pushing for more. Not yet, at least. It isn't so much a lack of interest as he can sense that Alucard is working towards something for himself, and Geralt has learned well enough over the decades when to press and when to let the confessions run their course.

Especially when he isn't here to interrogate anyone or pick apart a mystery. Alucard is simply...what he is to Geralt is undetermined, hard to place. They aren't friends. Geralt neither trusts him nor distrusts him. Maybe Geralt has just placed the decision as to what they are in Alucard's hands altogether. To let the vampire sort that out on his own, whenever he gets around to it.

Either way, the regrets Alucard carries with him like a shroud has been hard to miss from the start. He just doesn't know what that regret is about. For not doing enough to save his mother? For letting his father sink into despair and madness? All of it, perhaps. ]

[cryptsleeper]

It was inescapable. [The hospitality and the dramatics. Mostly the dramatics though, even if the dhampir would argue he was downright subtle by his family's standards for the entire duration of prison.

Perhaps it's one of the advantages of not being subtle - that everything Alucard is and isn't sits on the surface. That he's just a depressed thing and terrible at navigating it. That all of it weighs him down, and it isn't something he has shrugged off.

There's some wisdom with age that Alucard could never gain from his father's people. They aren't like that. And while Geralt isn't like that either, he's probably a better source.

The words that come out next are soft. Delicate. Aware that he may be treading on tender ground in spite of a good front.] How do you move on from a loss like this?

[gynvael]

[ The question makes him blink. Geralt tilts his head. He's not exactly been taught, either. Or raised in any...conventional manner. If anything, Alucard seems to have far better suited parents to pass on wisdom in regards to grief and mourning. For all that Vesemir did his best, the man is complicated, too. Especially in their early years, with four boys of varying temperaments and bodies strewn. A world that wanted none of them.

He was taught to survive. That's what it comes down to. Nothing more, nothing less. If Alucard is seeking something better, something more profound, he will not find it here with a Witcher. ]

You don't. [ The answer is blunt, but not unkind. ] The world will move on for you. And you can move with it or let yourself be swept away. That's your choice.

[cryptsleeper]

[Alucard's theory is this: Geralt may not have been taught, but lived experience over a century is far, far more valuable in his particular circumstances. He doesn't know how long he'll live, but these feelings will not be disappearing any time soon. Being stuck in survival mode likely is the other reason for all of this.

The bluntness is appreciated. He nods, understanding.]

And regrets are the same way, in your experience?

[gynvael]

[ How they landed on his topic, Geralt isn't sure. ] Depends on the regret.

[ That's mostly all it is. Moving forward. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes he still dreams of things from thirty, fifty, a hundred years ago. In the end, he's come to realize nothing good can be found in pulling apart old scars.

It doesn't mean he forgets. In a way, he doesn't want to forget, either. He's never harboured a desire to erase his past. To change course. It's made him what he is, for better or worse. ]

[cryptsleeper]

[Depends.

The word repeats itself several times, with Alucard quietly ruminating on it. If he should give context. If he should settle into awkward and awful silence or clarify.

What he says next is barely above a whisper, eyes focused on anywhere but Geralt.]

I killed my father.

[gynvael]

[ It is, Geralt has realized some time ago, a confession that's been a long time coming. He can't say what it is about him in particular that's made Alucard seek him out as the person to confess to. Maybe it's as simple as the vampire having held onto it for as long as he could, and Geralt just happens to be the person here, in this moment.

Either way, he doesn't react for a long while. His eyes are fixed on Alucard while Alucard looks everywhere else, sharp and examining.

Geralt holds no real concept of familial loyalty to one's blood relations. He understands, better than anyone, that blood often means nothing. And if Alucard had confessed this earlier, before he's grasped the way Alucard was raised, the type of person Alucard is, he'd not have blinked twice over it. But he's heard the warmth in how Alucard speaks of his childhood.

He does not ask why. That's not the right question here. Instead he asks, ] Who were you trying to save?

[cryptsleeper]

[The question is why Alucard felt it safest to have him be the first person here to understand a fraction of what happened back home. The reaction isn't based on a morality that immediately says murder is wrong - it suspects a reason.

Moreover, Geralt is a hunter. Dracula, for all the many wonderful things he was in Alucard's lifetime and in his relationship with Lisa of Lupu, was a monster who earned the reputation he did. None of that makes it easier, but it is rationalization for the dhampir.

His eyes settle on a window that looks out into the snow beyond.]

He'd have destroyed the whole country and all within to avenge my mother's execution.

[Not murder. Execution. That's what it was in the end, and for what? An ambitious bishop? For respect? Alucard still can't understand it, and he still can hear the argument that preceded the worst of what was to come.

Only the priest. Those who caused this, not the whole of Wallachia. He breathes out, half expecting his breath to cloud in front of him. His hands curl, withdrawing into the sleeves of his coat.] My mother's memory. Everything he did in her name went against all she stood for and all she asked of him.

[gynvael]

[ It would be easy, for most, to tell Alucard he made the right choice. The life of one for many. Not an especially complicated ethical conundrum for some. He understands, better than anyone, it's never so straightforward. That these will always be decisions that leave you wondering.

He considers, if he'd been there—would he have been the one who intervened? Maybe. Maybe not. He can see himself walking away as easily as he would not have. Conflicts born of vengeance and cruelty are not reasons a Witcher takes a contract. (And yet.) ]

You know your reasons. [ Geralt meets Alucard's gaze. ] Even if the world may not.

[ Is it enough? No. It rarely is. But it's what they have at the end of the day. ]

[cryptsleeper]

Reason and regret rarely balance each other out in these cases. But I think you already knew that.

[Alucard woudln't have asked otherwise.

There is no part of the dhampir that does not doubt he made the right choice. Not for the sake of Wallachia, but for his own father's sake. The world's longest suicide note, after all.

A part of Alucard still dwells in those last moments though. The realization of what his father was doing, how it seemed that perhaps he might be brought back from the brink of madness. That maybe they could learn to live together in Lisa's absence after all, the world still in tact.

He doesn't fold in on himself. Alucard does close his eyes though, silence settling in like a layer of snow. Besides, what else does one say to any of this?

At least he knows how to trade in silences with Geralt. Being forced into a small room with others will lend itself to that.]

[gynvael]

[ Trading silence is a skill Geralt has cultivated over the past decade, and one that hasn't left him since. He lets it sink over them without further comment. True. He does already know that. That's just how shit goes, isn't it? The world has never been especially kind toward him. He's here, anyway, living in it. It is, maybe, one of the few things he's always had the ability to choose. To be here. To exist, when most would believe he should not.

Eventually, he leans back on his hands. ] Next time you come by, bring some wine.

[ Alucard will be the first vampire to receive an open invitation to return to Kaer Morhen. (Well. A version of Kaer Morhen.) But frankly, he'd rather Alucard come here with a basket of fish and to ruminate than snap at hapless shopkeepers. Besides, they're all trapped on this world together at the end of the day. ]

[cryptsleeper]

[The silence isn't as uncomfortable as he thought it might be. He's gone and admitted one of the worst things he's done, but he did it to the right person. No judgement's been rendered, and that is a true relief.

He leans back in the chair, opening one eye to focus on Geralt.]

Red, white, or surprise you?

[The only question he has left in him today.]

[gynvael]

[ That's for the best. This is the only question he has any further answers for. He almost says surprise me before he thinks better of it. ]

Red.

[ All right, maybe he's thinking a little about Jaskier's wine, and his grapes. It's good fucking wine. Geralt might drink cheap shit out of necessity half the time, but it doesn't mean he hasn't got a taste for fine liquor when the opportunity arises. Which it does, in here.

He does not address the fact that he can, in theory, summon all manner of fine things for himself as he desires. But that's not something he wants to touch upon, letting himself create without limit. His mind has, too often in this place, betrayed him. ]