RP:A Pound of Flesh

Part of the You Must Have Been Human Arc

Part of the The God of Undeath Arc

This is a Mage's Guild RP.

This is a Necromancer's Guild RP.

Summary:Alithyk Caluss comes to collect the debt Quintessa owes it, but when confronted with her own mortality will the warlock betray her friends and family to the God of Undeath?

Lanlan :: A forlorn youth of pallid complexion closes the door to the Archmage’s chamber behind him. How one of such immaturity might’ve found this revered place undetected is a puzzle, but he seems neither afraid nor proud. For a moment, the lost boy stands holding his breath and doing nothing else, before he moves almost whimsically toward a bare section of wall, as ordinary as any other. He passes through it unobstructed as if it was a shallow cascade of water, and proceeds up, climbing dustless steps of gray stone into a shallow mezzanine that shouldn’t architecturally exist. Beyond the veil now, he can hear clearly the sound of work being done…somewhere. Somewhere still concealed from his sight. Once again, the boy stands idle, feeling out for his bequeathment.

Quintessa wasn’t often one to let someone sneak up on her but those rare occasions always seemed to take place when the changeling was embroiled in some project of mystical nature. Even one-handed she felt she was most equipped to do this task- to build a new home for Odhranos, this one much less grim than the Vailkrin counterpart that rested under her castle. Quintessa had not been alone in this endeavor, however; Karasu had been assisting her, but the demi-feline was absent at the moment, leaving the changeling by herself as she finished up the final touches. Once the runes were all placed all she would need to do is- “Uh, excuse me?” Finally Quintessa took note of the strange boy, turning to grab some tool and finding the child reaching out for something. The warlock narrows her eyes suspiciously. “You shouldn’t be in here.” Unarmed as she is, Quintessa feels at a disadvantage, but her voice still carries an air of authority that conveyed her seriousness. “I think you should-” The changeling pauses, sensing something off about this boy, the hairs on her neck standing on end. “You… Who are you? I don’t recognize you.”

Lanlan :: The boy only acknowledges her with a slow, slight turn of his head, showing a dirt brown scruff of messy hair and a full, but colorless cheek. "You think I should go home?" He asks, almost boredly. "I've been trying to... But I don't think you'll let me." The part of his mouth she can see tilts into a slight smile. "It's been such a long time, I don't know how to get back anymore." He turns his head a little bit more just to see her, then turns back. She might see a glimpse of his eye, milky white or pale yellow. "You were supposed to help me. You said you would."

Quintessa || There is a certain numbness that overcomes Quintessa’s body when the child utters the phrase “You were supposed to help me.” and the mithril tool in her hand slips from her grasp to clatter to the floor. Her stomach twists in a knot and she takes a step back, only to meet the edge of an unfinished project which stops her from retreating any further. “I… said I would…” Quintessa has not yet pieced together why she is scared at the moment, but she is petrified. Something deep in her core was telling her this boy wasn’t what he seemed. He was dangerous. “You want to go home? I can help you, sure… Where is ‘home’?” The warlock knew she should not allow her curiosity to compel her to ask these questions- she should be trying to escape, trying to get to Karasu, but she can’t. She’s trapped within this extremely tense moment. She has little choice but to engage.

Lanlan :: "Yes," the boy says, as he turns around fully now. The half of his face he kept hidden is demented. Part of his forehead warped by ruptured flesh, exposing bone in what must've been an agonizing blow, if only for a moment. His other eye seems to have escaped him, and his cheek is caved in. "You were supposed to help me with my father, because he was so mean to me. But you only made things worse! Why do you always do that?" He started to approach her, taking rigid steps on limbs that resist bending. As he drew nearer, the magic that kept her arm in a manageable stasis would begin to drain away from her, and the boys face would begin to gradually repair itself. "Do you really not recognize me?"

Quintessa || The boy’s appearance does little to unnerve Quintessa more than she already was, but the sudden pain in her left arm is what pushed the changeling from merely shaken to frightened. The brace on her left arm ceases to glow a faint green and the runes fall inert, robbed of their powers. Already the wounds were splitting open and spilling her blood on the Archmage Sanctum floors. Mismatched eyes look down at her left arm and then back again, the child already transformed back into his unassuming guise. “It’s -you-.” The color drains from her face. Callus was here to finally take what was owed. “I failed… So many people want to stop you. They don’t see what I see, but I hate your father too, as much as I hated my own…” Quintessa swallows the lump forming in her throat. “Allow me to bargain with you a second time.”

Lanlan :: The boy shows her a look of pain and confusion. "...No? That's not... Me." But the corpse's use was becoming outlived. "That's not... My name is..." He squeaks, and then some kind of growth begins under the pale dead skin of his neck. "..." The boy tries to cry out and slaps his hand onto hers desperately, a weak grip. There's a convulsion in the small body as his neck stretches to its limit, and then tears, leaving only a thin black membrane to cover the unsightly growth. There was no reason to possess this boys body except to torment her. When it didn't, Caluss begins to shed it. Abruptly, his abscess bursts. A dense black mist of choking fumes plumes outward, rapidly drowning the room in a heavy toxic shroud. As the corpse's head falls back, it's grip only tightens. "You've nothing to offer me in life I couldn't take with your death," it whispers. And from her mutilated flesh does his corruption spread; a ravenous infection shooting up her arm in black streaks, soon followed by a sour bloom of putrid gangrene.

Quintessa || There was very little Quintessa could do to stop any of this from taking place. The transformation, the rot creeping up her arm, the impending sense of doom that impermeated the entire area. Even so, Quintessa felt an odd calm overcome her. If death was inevitable then why should she fear it? The whispers of her Night Hag mother echo a reminder though her head and the changeling gives an uneven smile to the monstrosity before her. “Your name… Alithyk Caluss, the Great Insectoid that Dwells Between Worlds… And if you do not need me then why have you come?” Quintessa shows great composure for one in such immense pain, but her life has always been painful, this was just a new flavor of it. “You did not come here just to torment me… That would be a waste of your time.” Quintessa looks in the direction the Xalious Tree would be, though there are no windows for her to view it through in this room. “Time that could be spent elsewhere… Your enemies, I’ve been keeping close to them, watching them. You don’t know what they are planning, do you?” There was a tiny hint of challenge in her voice, an unwise slipup if this was a misplay. She had to hope her gambit was correct. “I do. I can help you.”

From the veil of shadowy mist, a shape begins to emerge as the fumes intensify and coagulate into an abyssal black. But with such darkness, the light is engulfed, where the void ends and the creature begins is near impossible to tell, and it's just as difficult to perceive the inky proboscis encroaching the young woman. A whisper, hoarse and grating like a death rattle implies the monster is quite close. "I've come for my bequeathment," It says plainly, and while he speaks, the siphoning of his power out of her is abated. "My testament was that you act out my will upon three embodiments. You agreed... You reneged." His cracking voice was even toned, and It seemed to take no pleasure in harming her. Perhaps it mattered that she understand why. But It would again resume drawing out his gift, and causing her to suffer indirectly. But something she says seems to reach him, because the painful process is stopped once more. He can't see everything, and if he killed her, he couldn't use her corpse to spy on them. Not for long, at least. Nor could he trust her. Still, she was right, he needed an informant. He was vulnerable on this plane, for now. "My enemies," It rattles. "Your friends." A conundrum that once he let her try to solve, to prove her faith. This time she wouldn't get the chance to choose, he would know her choice. The corpse It uses to hold Tessa's arm in place and take it's power back puts an object covered Ina viscous black tar in her mutilated hand. "You'll keep this on you at all times," It says, neither a command nor a suggestion. Simply, it seems, a fact. "Another piece of me. Still mine. I'll use it to see what you see." The pain would actually diminish now, as his power returned to her. "I'll use it to take you if need be." The boy releases her and collapses into a lifeless heap as the toxic fumes rapidly dissipate, until she knows she's truly, truly alone.

Quintessa braces herself for the end. She swears it's coming but she's not scared. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad, but then Caluss speaks and her eyes refocus on It. Her lips part and tremble but she can't find the words she wants to say. Before she can find them Caluss places a cold stone in her hand, an object she was ordered to keep on her at all times. It rests in her injured palm, shimmering like a corrupted cat's eye as she examines it. She could feel the sense of foreboding emanating from it- it was powerful, even in her experience, and had Quintessa's aura not already been a baleful presence people would know she had this object on her. Maybe those even more keen to the differences than Quintessa was could still tell, but she had little choice but to obey. But then Caluss adds something at the end that makes her blood run cold. "Take me?" But it is far too late. The young male form that Caluss had taken collapses into nothing before her, purposely leaving Quintessa to guess at what It meant before leaving the changeling alone in the room, the runes on her arm's brace reactivating and draining the rot from her flesh. Panting and in a cold sweat, Quintessa slowly slides to the ground, her back still against the new tank as she lifts the gem to gaze more closely at it. "As you wish." She finally says, speaking to the object as if it was Alithyk Caluss, the Great Insectoid that Dwells Between Worlds itself.

Karasu waits until the room grows silent to reveal herself. Though she had not heard the entirety of the communications, she had heard enough. "Quintessa." The spellblade enters the doorway carrying the materials Quintessa had asked her to source beforehand, along with two terribly familiar masks. Her expression is inscrutable as she sets the materials down and holds out the mask of tragedy and neutrality for her to take. When the warlock opens her mouth, Karasu holds a hand up to motion to let her speak first. "I already knew that you were one of them, and I've known where you kept these hidden away. You know I'm not going to go against you and Kanna, but I'm also not going to aid you in harming my connection to magic. I'm going to depart for Frostmaw now to investigate why our courier birds have gone unanswered, and in the meantime..." Karasu's lip gives a sad twitch upwards as she kneels and wipes the sweat from Quintessa's forehead with her handkerchief, her movements unusually gentle for the usually brash feline. "I'm just going to trust that you'll do the right thing, and that you're going to come back to me. You -are- coming back to me, aren't you?"

Quintessa’s bottom lip quivers when Karasu comes out of hiding, knowing it was far too late to try and hide this from her. She parts her lips to speak but her partner hushes her, the guilt that was in her eyes already saying everything that she needed to. When Karasu wipes the sweat from her face, silent tears trail down her cheeks. “Yes,” she promises, her voice straining against the weight of her emotions. She looks down at the gem in her hand and furrows her brow. The things she wanted to say, she couldn’t, not while Caluss was watching. “It doesn’t make sense now but in the end it will. I…” ‘Have a plan.’ is what she wants to say but can’t so she just says, “I hope.” After Karasu helps Quintessa to her feet and prepares for her trip to Frostmaw, Quintessa embraces her to send her off, holding onto her like this was the last time she’d ever see her. “We -will- see each other again, I promise. Not even the gods could stop me from that."