Talbot

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   <default>Talbot</default>
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Talbot is purportedly a selfless individual that set himself against a threat to protect people.

Personality

Talbot was once the type of person who would devout himself to containing a potential disaster and only ask the instigator to make something better with their life as recompense.<ref name="16.ye1"/> Hundreds of years later his personality is much-changed, having been degraded by centuries of isolation,<ref name=":b">Behavior: Trussed are victims of time, their minds eroded much as their bodies are. They may be delirious, single-minded, or left with whatever few key words or ideas they’ve managed to hold onto over the years. This almost always includes some focus on the events that led to their (self-)incarceration. They while away the days and years with routine or by talking to themselves, and rouse only if the space is intruded on. Their reactions vary from violent retaliation and defense of the area to the elderly individual that rouses once they realize they have visitors. In rare cases, they may try to capture visitors to take their place.

Trussed very rarely venture from their space and when they do they don’t venture far before finding new places to settle. They are prone to repeating themselves and may not keep good track of a conversation. They clarify more when and if conversation turns to specific subjects.
[...]
Weaknesses: Trussed are slow, and as much as they are repositories of knowledge, their awareness of immediate environment is restricted in scope; they may be hyperaware of any who tread on the cracked or root-ridden floor, but blind to a hand moving before their faces. They’re often too addled to be good negotiators, too clumsy to even use an object they are given to pass the time. They are the last thing standing between perceived threats and the door, they have their space, and they remember the old days. Other things and capabilities have been worn away. - Bestiary: Trussed</ref> Milly opined that the Gu Goblin Gaol that he keeps watch over has affected him, making him meaner, nastier and viler.<ref name="16.ye3">[Talbot] made another creaking response. A lip bled as it cracked.

“Here,” [Milly] offered. She wet his lips with the cloth. He kissed the cloth and sucked away dirty moisture. “Don’t drink that just yet. I’ll give you clean water in a moment, if you’ll wait.”
[...]
“Here, drink,” she told him. She put the cloth to his lips.

“No,” he answered, his voice still a creak of a sound. “Would rather- would rather be thirsty. Better to stay thirstier than anything than to be reminded, then be thirsty again. Bitch.”

“I don’t think that’s you talking,” Milly told him. “That’s the poison and goblin-ness in the jar, leeching out to you.”

“Bitch,” he repeated, that one eye looking at her in the gloom. “Why would you say it’s been a month? Let me forget time.”

“I’ll remember that for next time. I can make the visits irregular.”

“Don’t come. Don’t give me water. Don’t mention time. You bitch. A slit-shaped hole for cocks to spit into.”

“Talbot, I know you’re a better man than this.”

“A hole. A whore. A hole. A whore. A hole-”

He rocked as much as he could with the roots that bound him to wall and floor, cradling the jar, a mad look in his eye. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.y</ref>

Such degradation and personality changes are typical of a trussed<ref name=":b"/> and Talbot proved particularly misogynistic even if it was seemingly a defense mechanism he used to justify his unending vigil.<ref name=“Miso”/> A further observation, he doesn't understand how society has changed in the hundreds of years he's been guarding the jar jail.<ref name=“Miso”>“Talbot, as your Lord-”

She stopped herself.

He snickered to himself. “You’re a Lord? Did they run out of boys? Oh, but you wear trousers. I know your type, whore bitch. Don’t got a willy and you feel the lack. Two ways a woman like that can go. They go to a man to fill the hole or they act the part of a man.”

“Women wear pants now. You’re behind the times, Talbot.”

“Don’t talk to me about time!” he spat dust as he shouted. Flecks of broken, stone-crusted lips and blood from the split in his lips flew out with the spit. “Don’t talk to me about time! Don’t! Bitch!”

“You were a good man. You’ve been poisoned and maddened,” she told him. “You made such a sacrifice.”

“Bitch,” he spat the word, not even looking at her, or anything, anymore. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.y</ref>

Relationships

Anyone that would have watched over him is long gone now.<ref name="16.ye1"/>

Milly Legendre

Was incredible rude and acerbic to Milly, this affected her own view on Sealing.<ref>She wasn’t sure what being a great warden or knight of seals might look like, but a part of her was terrified that it looked like this.

The heroic sacrifice. Holding an evil back for so long that she became a part of the door, of wall, of floor.

Until now, and until tonight, she’d imagined there was a resigned nobility in it.

But Talbot was no longer noble.- Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.y</ref> Regardless he has to give her secret sealing knowledge given her position and showed her a new ward.<ref name=”kni”>You’ve become living protective magics
[...]
[Milly] replied. “One last thing, then. As an Other of wards and seals, you’re attuned to forces. By the knighting ritual as a keeper of groves, sanctuaries, and holds, I’m in my rights to ask for secret knowledge.”

His hand creaked and cracked as he pulled it away from the jar.
[…]
His finger scraped the paper, leaving a smudge of clay-like white-brown. He marked the page, the movements almost mechanical.

Possibly a new ward. Or something that could contribute to greater knowledge about wards.- Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.y</ref>

Hugh Legendre

Hugh could well have been the first person Talbot met after at least a century of isolation.

Appearance

He has a starved appearance with all of his bones clearly visible beneath the skin, the equally old rags he wears have grown stiff in the confinement.<ref name="16.ye.2">He was emaciated. Her brother’s height, less than a third of the weight. Skin sucked in between ribs to the extent she could have laid a finger inside one of the divots and been level with the ribs. A man, dressed in scant rags, but the rags had gone stiff long ago.

He embraced a clay pot, legs and arms wrapped around it. He’d been down here for so long that tree roots had grown into him, draining away moisture and leaving flesh stone-like. Those same roots bound arms and legs in place. A curl of root filled one eye socket, and in the other, dust and grit had caked it to the point that it was impossible to tell where the eye was meant to open. The roots bound legs to the flat stone of the floor, extended beneath the rags of his pelvis. Rooting him to the floor in more than one sense. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.y</ref> His flesh has turned to stone and tree roots have grown around him one even obscuring his eye,<ref name="16.ye.2"/> the spirits of the environment filling in where his humanity has drained away with time,<ref>Appearance: The Trussed are humans or human-like Others who are often of an unusual height, frequently with the appearance of those who have been kept prisoner for some time, with little body fat, skin in poor condition (notwithstanding other alterations). They may be muscular or thin. Through stonework, carpentry, roots, or other environmental details, they are frequently knit to the surrounding structure. Skin may be of a texture blending material and organic. [...] Often mournful and disconnected. [...] Over time, the spirits of the immediate evironment will occupy the diminishing humanity. - Bestiary: Trussed</ref> the marked runes on his skin have sunken into carvings on stone.<ref name="16.ye1"/>

He can’t move without there being audible cracking from his deformations.<ref name=”kni”/><ref name="16.ye3"/>

Abilities

He used to be a sealer,<ref>Talbot had been Sealer, much like her. Now he was Other.
[...]
She wasn’t sure what being a great warden or knight of seals might look like, but a part of her was terrified that it looked like this.

The heroic sacrifice. Holding an evil back for so long that she became a part of the door, of wall, of floor.

Until now, and until tonight, she’d imagined there was a resigned nobility in it.

But Talbot was no longer noble. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.y</ref> but the centuries-long vigil has rendered him a Trussed. A kind of permanent warden capable of keeping a ceaseless watch free from the demands of biology, <ref name="16.ye1"/> of which he doesn't appear to be a particularly powerful example; he has not shown or demonstrated that he retains any of the practice he once knew as a practitioner, nor has he created a pseudo-realm around himself to guard himself. It should be noted that he has not been threatened by any hostile entities so he may have just not demonstrated any such skills.<ref>Trussed are resilient, and keenly aware of specific details of their environment. Responsibility and time have lent them great power, even as time may have eroded the finer knowledge of practice or their Other abilities. As such, there is a chance (perhaps one in three) that they retain some powers, with supreme puissance. This is often warding practice- a push back, an ability to have the walls creep in and absorb those nearby, or the ability to submerge the environment, plunging everything underwater. When these powers aren’t evidenced, expect them to still be able to trample and override practice and bear monstrous strength. They do all of this while barely moving or moving very slowly, and make up for it by being incredibly tough- not that many would want to kill the guardian that is keeping that dark door across the room shut.

Because they take on a particular weight, Trussed have a way of making accessing their location hard; they create a depression of sorts, which acts as an extension of themselves and their realms, and the way in may be dark, hazardous, labyrinthine, and exceedingly difficult for the Innocent. Entire forests may gently deflect entry, getting less gentle as one bears deeper in. Specific Others may be inclined to set up shop nearby. A strong and alert Trussed may wear opponents down with a kind of attrition. Those who reach the final chamber may be cold, wet, starved, or bewildered as they face this time-worn goliath. - Bestiary: Trussed</ref>

Regardless the Pattern created by his centuries-long vigil has made him living protective magics and attuned to Greater Powers involved, so he is able to relate important information to people with the proper authority to ask.<ref>You’ve become living protective magics
[...]
[Milly] replied. “One last thing, then. As an Other of wards and seals, you’re attuned to forces. By the knighting ritual as a keeper of groves, sanctuaries, and holds, I’m in my rights to ask for secret knowledge.” - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.y</ref>

Chronology

Origins

One of the early settlers of the region attempted to make a Gu jar, a jar containing venomous beasts, Spirits and Goblins insides. He realized what he'd made was too dangerous to let loose and tried to seal it away, creating two more jars over the first. Both the first two jars ended up breaking forcing him to keep hold of the third to stop it from shaking.

Talbot offers to take the jar, securing it in his embrace and wards the area around him. He used practice to prevent himself from dying of old age or hunger and guarded the jar for centuries.<ref name="16.ye1">Long, long ago, around a time of early settlers, someone had tried to make a Gu jar. They’d captured venomous beasts, goblins, and evil spirits, and they’d stored them in a jar, with the expectation they’d devour one another, concentrating ugliness and poison into a single survivor. Or that they’d dissolve and something else would rise within.

As the story went, the maker of the jar had realized that what he’d made was too great and terrible to be let loose. He’d taken measure after measure to keep it contained, but the jar would knock and the lid would shake, threatening to come free. So he’d placed it inside another jar with a cork and he’d sealed it with practice. Then inside another jar, this jar, giving it no opening or exit at all, except being broken.

And the first jar inside had broken with a crack that had woken everyone in the area out of their slumber. Then the second jar had broken and the creator had gone running about, carrying the jar, desperately afraid of dropping it, but needing help all the same.

Back then, a lot of practitioners had been tied to the Church. The man in charge of the church had agreed to handle the problem.

A selfless man. He’d warded the area, and hid himself away, embracing the jar to seal it within his grasp. Then, to the stunned and relieved culprit, he’d asked that the creator of the jar turn away from evil and live a life as virtuous as the one the reverend would now never be able to leave.

And then he’d remained. Sitting in the dark, hidden from sight and interference, holding the four foot tall clay jar carefully with limbs marked with wards, so it couldn’t throw itself to one side or hatch from the jar that was now egg-fragile. Prayers and power meant he didn’t starve, though he got hungry, and he didn’t dehydrate. He didn’t need sleep, and he didn’t age. People would visit from time to time. The caretaker of the church would be his caretaker, visiting every evening.

Until the church had been abandoned. A man with dreams of chasing a higher position moved on from the little stone church and the reverend in the cellar, and he left nobody in his stead. Roots had grown in, securing him, skin became like stone, etched with the wards, and the means of entering the hidden room was forgotten.

While scanning the region for any latent dangers, Milly’s dad had found the reverend here. Keeping eternal vigil. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.y</ref>

Modern Day

The Legendre family discovered him and took over the abandoned duty of looking after him.<ref name="16.ye1"/>

After Musser made a lordship in the Nipigon region then passed it off to Milly Legendre she checked in on Talbot and suggested that whatever was inside the jar might be dead but he refused to listen,<ref>“Talbot,” she told him. “It’s possible that whatever was in that jar has withered, died, or burned out. If I’m right, you’ve triumphed. You’ve won. you could let go.”
[...]
“No. I can’t let it be for nothing,” he repeated.- Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.y</ref> possibly having become too comfortable with his predictable predicament.

References