Knight of Iron

"Aaand now she's attacking us."

"She didn't stay long enough to find out," Exodus answered, "She abandoned them."

He chuckled. "Aye, I have what people would call a 'real' name, but nobody wants to hear it. X is close enough! And, I'm a professor." He pulled out a a small orb-like object, half red and half white. "Of these things."

"I'm not quite sure what she's on about, either. Something about demons at the other group," Exodus offered.

As soon as she had finished, there was a flash of green light as a man appeared to Stephen's side. He was dressed in a dark gray nylon workout jacket, with bright reflective green lines. He seemed to be about fifty years old, with a few light strands of gray intermixed with his thick, hickory hair. "Poof!" he said sarcastically, then poked Stephen. "Hey, kid, take care. I can handle myself." He turned back to the woman and smiled. "I'm Professor X. Forgive the intrusion. What an impressive team, this is."

Cruz, having exited the cave, began looking for newspapers, looking for any recent noteworthy events which he could use to locate the others.

"I shall finish discussions with him, then." He paused, then reached his hand to his head. "No," he muttered, "Not yet. I—" he stayed silent for a few moments, head looking down. "I get that, but we agreed that I would—" he paused again. Then turned back to the woman. "We might have a couple Knights wanting to come through and explore. Would you mind? We'll try not to be bothersome."

Exodus smoothly steps out of the way of the blade. "Surely there's been a misunderstanding," he says, "Let's talk this out. Believe me..." he gestures to the orcs, still frozen, "You don't want to fight me." Orpheus tossed the shovel to the ground. "Well," he said, "Let's bury him then."

Exodus furrowed his brow in confusion. "No...? I've been here, immobilizing these orcs." He gestured to Ara and Minuet. "They can vouch for that." @JesterLavorre @Condensation

"Aye, I've never been the best at coming up with names. Anywho, we came across this little group, watched for a while, and then here I am. We've been considering an alliance of sorts."

"Mostly we just expand our Knights to combat a few evil multiversal forces. Not big, but still threatening.

"Is this where your former mentor lies?" Orpheus asked quietly.

Stephen blinked. "Knights of... of... we haven't decided yet. For now... the Knights of the Thing."

"It kinda is. Thankfully, most of these other people are just as interested in what I study as I am. We call ourselves the Knights. They're watching us right now, actually."

"Yes. I've got a special contraption with magical enchantments that, somehow, manage to detect the exact spiritual construct of my soul—not personality, or life experience, but my very spiritual DNA—in random universes. And then I can hone in on them and open portals to those universes, close to where that soul exists. The fact that I'm here means that somewhere in this universe, a replica soul of my own exists."

"My method of discovering new universes is... flawed. It's entirely dependent on..." Stephen hesitated. "Well, my soul."

"It's an infinite multiverse, thus, infinite universes without this... Clan. Even despite their reach. Why, what are they?"

"Then bury him here, certainly. Poor kid." Orpheus procured a shovel, brushed off his bloody arms, and trotted off towards the edge of the forest.

"The forest nearby the tower. A memorial. Did he ever tell you about any family?"

Orpheus shrugged. "Someplace outside the tower?"

"Ah... it's been difficult keeping track of the years now that I'm immortal. Took me a good fifteen years to establish feasible methods of travel between universes, and I've probably only been actually exploring it for a few years now, picking up some folks on the way."

Stephen nodded. "From what I've gathered about the other universes I've seen, the place where I come from is a fairly uninteresting medieval setting. Feudal system and everything. And we only have, like, two wizards, a gift which is as far as we can tell purely genetic. Quite boring, really, and so after my fair share of adventuring, I settled down and discovered multiversal travel."

"I... no. Care to explain?"

"Perfect!" Stephen exclaimed. "I, young woman, am Lord Stephen—but please, call me Stephen. This group... the Fellowship, as you call it, are the first multiversal team we have come across in our studies. I hope you wouldn't mind it if I and my, ahem, companions were to hang around a bit? Study the Fellowship? We'd help out, if we can, of course."