RP:Aiden and the Basilisk Baby

Part of the Agitation Arc

Summary: A little elf girl named Edenien is desperate to save the life of her grandfather who has been poisoned by a basilisk. A disguised Trajek gives her a basilisk egg and says an antidote can be made from the creature’s venom, but she’ll need to ask the Mage’s Guild to help. Edenian runs to the tower begging for help. Aiden with the help of two young apprentice mages respond to the call. In a protective circle, they hatch and slay the basilisk. Then Trajek, now disguised as the sick grandfather, springs out of the bed, kills Edenien, and steals the corpse. Aiden is not happy, and burns the cottage to rid it of lingering dark magic. He has a new enemy now, and a new mystery to solve.

Cottage on the Outskirts of Xalious Village

Josleen was in Larket, staring at a petrified mammoth schlong hung as a curtain rod in her home, and wondering where her life took a wrong turn. Meanwhile in Xalious… Little Edenien had not cried this hard since her mother died during the last war with the drow. That was the second time she cried her hardest. The first time had been when her father died during the first drow war, but she did not remember that time for she was just a baby then. But that’s how it happened, according to grandfather, who she loved most of all the family she had left. He was also the only family she had left, and now he was writhing, hot and feverish on his little cot in their hut on the edge of the forest. Bramble twigs and razor grass cut her barefeet as she ran into the village, making a beeline for the Mage’s Tower. She had traded her last pair of shoes for a present for grandpa’s birthday, a sunflower enchanted never to die, even if it was taken into the Sage Forest where everything was dying. Sage elves like her had lost everything, or so the elders say, but Edenien couldn’t remember having much of anything at all. But she had something now. Big fat teardrops splashed on the humming, warm egg in her hands. She nestled it under her chin and hugged it as she ran. It was the size of her head with a shell as coarse as sandpaper the color of mushy peas several days old with black spots of fungus. The old leper told her that inside the egg was a lizard monster, and that the monster must die so that she could collect its teeth-spit, venom, because the poison would be the medicine that would make her grandfather better. Crying, she had told the leper that she didn’t know how to open the egg, and he shrugged and said he didn’t know either, then pointed to the Mage’s Tower in the distance, and left. She had tucked the sunflower under her grandfather’s sweaty palms, pressed her forehead to his, and left. At the tower she ran into the few public access rooms on the ground floor for visitors and customers come to buy some magical wares. She didn’t know who she should ask for, and instead screamed that her father was sick, that only the lizard in the egg could save him, and that they had to help her! Any mage worth his salt recognized the cockerel egg for what it was, and knew that inside was a dormant basilisk which could be coaxed out with the right spell. A dangerous item for a child, and even more dangerous should it fall into the wrong hands. The girl in her panic mistook strangers’ shock for un unwillingness to help. Finn came up from his shop and called to her, “Come here, girl. Let me see that egg and we’ll let the higher ups know you’re here.” She mistrusted the merchant immediately--children often misjudge adult motives--and fled. If the mages wanted to recuperate this dangerous item, they would have to chase her. It would be easy. She didn’t go far. Just to a small hut on the edge of the forest where an old elf man writhed hot and feverish, in pain.

Aiden was in his chambers, located on the middle floor of the Mage Tower, when he heard a rasp on the door. Like most other arcanist, when he was in his room he was often studying. The subject at hand this day? Dragons. His talk with Hildegarde, newly crowned queen of Frostmaw, had given him key insight on who, or more so-what-, had taken a slew of mages recently. Having been enthralled in a particular chapter on blues, the magus really found himself more annoyed than he meant to be when the slight rasp upon his door turned into a harder, more resounding, series of knocks. Hating to leave such important work unfinished, Aiden rises from his desk and walks across his room to open his door. There stood two faces he barely recognized. Nickolai, a human teen who was naught but a child of twelve when he left three years ago, had grown tall and lanky. His dirty blonde hair was shaggy, and he had some acne that was concealed but still visible if in looked hard enough. Next to him was Elenia, a half elf, whose rather fetching features seem to have only gotten slightly more appealing over the years. Her raven locks frame her exotic features well, and it was easy to see why she was so often the favorite of some of the older masters in the tower. Exhaling, hoping they were not here to discuss stories of his travels abroad, the senior mage asks the two. "What is it?" Nickolai, seeing the expression on Aiden's face, tries to begin to inform his superior of the reason behind the visit. Elenia beats him too it, and reports with. " We've been sent here to get you by the masters. A child came into the tower in a panic. Finn tried to help her, but she fled. She carries with her a basilisk egg, and we've no idea how she got it. Reports are she fled back into the forest, but not too far." Nickolai simply shakes his head and asks. "We were told to get you, and go with you to investigate the matter." Having listened to the tale it takes more willpower than he'd like to admit to not spam the door and return to the matter of missing mages. But the masters have issued an order, and as such Aiden must obey. Exhaling once more the sorcerer replies. "I'll be out in a minute." Before he closes the door. Another sigh. "Guess I clean up all the messes in the realm now, huh?" Who he was talking to, one could only guess. Either way a few moments later the man emerges from his chambers, garbled in his robe, with his staff in hand. Looking to the two waiting on him, he says. "Lets go." And the trio sets off in search of the girl. It didn't take long, even on foot, to find the cottage. It was a simple thing, really. But evidence of a lack of upkeep was seen. The grass was a bit too high, some tools lay about a table near the door, rust beginning to creep upon the metal, probably due to the recent rain. But, this was the place that was pointed out, and as such Aiden approaches the door. Using the crown of his staff, which houses a crystal made out of arcane energy made whole, he taps on the door and waits. The two arcane stewards next to him look about, wondering why in the world the masters would deem this worthy of their time. If Aiden had been thinking the same thing, one couldn't tell. His expression was composed, professional one could say. Whatever was on his mind was unreadable. He simple waited for someone to answer the door.

Something did answer the door when Aiden knocked, though the door did not open and the greeting was no corporeal thing. It was a wail, one made reedy by a throat ravaged by the poison that melted life, vitality, strength, and flesh and muscle from the dying elf's neck, limbs, and trunk. "The...the hiss!" Terror and death were entwined, were wrapped between rasping, shallow, unfulfilling breaths. The child opened the door slowly, if only because the dying elf begged for fresher air---she opened to the world a hellish scene. The elder elf, wrapped in rags that were darkened and fouled by bodily fluids, blood, and an even stranger sickly green substance, writhed on the mattress similarly soaked. Fingers flexed while hands were held up, while arms were contorted in a painful caricature, a hellish mockery, of their true forms. His back arched and twisted, and his covered face was thrown over the side of the mattress were bile was spewed. What seeped through the cowl, what touched the ground, killed. Food rotted where it was sprayed, and grass withered, dark and shriveled. The sunflower, the poor token from a loving granddaughter, had suffered such a fate long before the child's return. The need for a basilisk is ready apparent; the old elf had come in contact with one, and much like the beast itself, shed its venom upon everything it touched. Even the air around him, misted as it was by near invisible flecks of venom, slew the flies that searched for rotting flesh. "The hiss...The eyes..." He wailed. He breathed. He retched.

Little Edenien trembled halfway between the door and the bed. Grandfather looked so much worse now than he did when she left less than 20 minutes earlier. She shouted in terror as the mages joined her. Through heaving sobs she explained, “He’s sick!” Basilisk poisoning, and the old man’s ramblings, made the diagnosis clear to any well-rounded mage with rudimentary knowledge of beasts. She looked at Aiden and although she did not recognize his face, she knew from his clothing and stature that he must be a mage, one of the good guys, right? She held up the dark, spotted egg. “Sir, a healer told me that inside this egg is a monster, and that a mage could open the egg and kill the monster to collect its poison-spit. It’s medicine for my grandfather.” Which is true, basilisk poison can be transmogrified into its own antidote (the world of magic seldom makes sense.)

Aiden was unmoved by the wails of death that so evidently hanged in the air, waiting like a vulture to sweep down and claim its prize. The pair of younger mages, however, could not help but be shocked at the scene before them. The smell of bile, poison and even feces poured out of that room in a putrid haze that made Nickolai have to step back and to the side, while Elenia's face churned up as she uses the sleeve of her robe to cover her nose and mouth. Be it magical wards, an iron stomach, or unshakable nerves, Aiden himself only stepped further into the scene without a hint of hesitation. The little girl, while not ignored, isn't addressed right off the bat. The sorcerer's gaze was too transfixed upon the emaciated form of the dying elf on the bed. Waving Elenia in, he says to her. "Secure the egg, and the child, outside for now." Choosing the woman to do this was an easy choice, simply because Nickolai could barely keep his head together right now as it is, let alone offer any comfort to a child so frantic as the one here. Either way, Aiden moves to look at the man a bit more, before Nickolai is summoned in, and told. "We're in luck, giving n the rarity of that egg. And we've little time, as he seems to have progressed quite far. Go outside, ready a protective circle, and make -sure- the sigils are done right." Having never taken his eyes off the old man on the bed, Aiden knew, even newly hatched basilisk are a danger. More so, since young ones can't control their venom. And the glare can even turn some to stone, if you're not warded against such measures. With his orders given, the magus looks about for clues. Not to aid the man, but rather for anything to help explain how he came into contact with such a foul creature. It's almost unheard of for a basilisk to be above ground, out of the wilds of the underdark. So, did this elf travel down into that hellish domain? And if so, why? More so, why would a healer, of any skill, just so happen to have such an egg, and why in the Hell would they just give it to a little girl? Things are definitely curious here, but the man's life was fading in a slow and agonizing manner. They needed to act fast to save him, and that meant questions had to wait. Standing over the bedridden adventurer, the sorcerer begins an incantation that breathes life into a spot 'll. This spell is simply meant to slow the process of the venom, as well as help the man by putting him in a comatose like state. His screams were distracting, and the more he moved the more at risk he was at damaging himself, as well as possibly spreading that venom about. With this done, Aiden watches over things for right now, while Elenia tries to comfort the child, and Nickolai readies them all to magically hatch the basilisk egg. Even still, the magus cannot help but ponder as to what, how and why. His curious mind even pondered upon the possibility of the basilisk still being in the area. Maybe even this egg being one of its own. But again, he pushes these thoughts aside. They needed to save the man's life, and doing so meant he was needed to ensure things went right. So he heads outside to make sure Nickolai wasn't messing anything up.

Trajek was deep within his fevered delirium, the poison having worked its way through his body and his mind. Lips moved beneath the fabric upon his face, heavied by the dangerous muck his aching body pushed up. "Mines. Mines! No...No...Dark. Darkness. Hiss! 'Ware...the Hiss!" Days upon days, nights upon nights, scrambling his way from work to work that had him delving deep into mines to scratch out silver while only being paid a few coppers. The skeletal grandfather obviously thought he had come in contact with a slime or slick of the dreaded beast while working, so often was his babblings to warn his fellow workmen who still stood with him in the memory of the mines. He fell into stillness and silence when Aiden's words reached his ears, even though the war within his body was still being waged.

Edenien resisted Elenia’s gentle herding. “No, grandfather!” She didn’t want to be too far from her only kin. Short of slapping or restraining the child, the furthest Elenia could get her was into the foreroom (all-in-one kitchen, living area, dining area) which was the size of an overgrown closet. The cramped space would prove difficult for mages if the basilisk entered the hut. It’s a good thing Aiden had the foresight to put the egg outside in a protective circle. When her grandfather mumbled about mines, the girl nodded fervently. “He got sick at the mines. Oh please, help him! You must help him! He’s dying!” She peered through teary eyes around Aiden’s body at her vomiting grandfather. She too seemed resistant to life’s horrors, mostly because her life had been filled with them. Would today turn for the worst, would her tragedies continue to pile on? Could the mages offer a lifeline to a child in need?

Aiden pauses on his way out just as be nears completion he looks to the child. The seemingly cold demeanor he had a moment ago is washed away, replaced now by a flash of a warm smile as he says in a tone infused with magic meant to sooth the child and put her at ease. " You're a brave one, what is your name? This.." He nods to Elenia, as his magic weaves it way through his words to entice the child into a more manageable manner. "Is Elenia, she is your friend. We're here to help, but we need you to stay in here while we work, ok?" The Mage's magic is potent, but not overly so as to risk the child being hurt. Either way, coupled with Elenia's presence, he hopes the odds are high for him to be able to focus now on the task at hand. With a nod to them both, Aiden steps outside to venture forth towards the magical circles of protection. The egg lay in the center, and Nickolai just finishes up with the last sigil, causing a flash of azure light to wash over the scene before dying out. A signal, that all was in place.

With the last sigil drawn, the cockerel egg and the beast it held within it was sealed from the outside world...and that was enough for the beast within the shell to stir. The warmth of the sun was gone, and what permeated through the egg's shell and into yolk sack was metallic, was supernatural, was...magic! The basilisk fed on the magic the sigils exuded, consuming it as a dehydrated man drank from a well. And with more and more spellwork, the egg shell thinned, its color waned, and soon the creature that brooded within it could be seen, its very being made luminescent by the magic it gorged itself upon. Moments, mere moments, tens upon tens of shallowed breaths from the dying elder and but a few from those hale and whole, and the shell began to crack. Hairlines at first, nearly invisible thin strands that webbed the entire orb…and with an explosion of light, like steel against steel, the basilisk was freed! It was a babe, a rare sight for one of its species, its tail curling only twice around the inner circumference of the protective ward. The feathers upon its body were damp with the same amniotic fluids that still glued its wings to its frame. But its eyes, when they could best the afterbirth that still cemented its lids shut, were those of the fabled creature. Where one looked, the invisible ward was seen, its opaqueness coming from the stone it repeatedly shed. Its mouth opened, and its deadly poison misted against the shielding that threw off the venom into a rising mist. But the same that sealed it in, that protected both mage and child from petrification and poison, was pulled into its core. With every moment it grew, and the ease of which it could be dispatched diminished.

“Edenien,” the girl said when asked her name. She nodded dumbly at Aiden’s instructions and stood in the room between the mages outside and her grandfather in the hut’s sole bedroom. Her gaze darted back and forth between the mages and her family, hoping desperately that the old healer was right. Please, Lauria, please. She couldn’t see the basilisk from where she stood, which was for the best, all told.

Aiden watches the events of this supernatural birth unfold before them all. As expected, the thing feeds off the mystical energy, and grows at such a rapid pace. Again, as expected. In his travels he has dealt with these things before, even recalling his time spent in Astapor, a slave city, where man known as the collector lived. A lich, in the centuries he has been alive he had collected a vast amount of time things. Needless to say, basilisks were one such thing. Not only that, the lich bred them, trying to see if the locations he collected them from impacted their genes. End of the day, Aiden was privy to many ways to kill these creatures. Watching it feed, the magus stalks forth. The creature clawed and raked at the barrier, but to no prevail. It held strong. This also allows the magus to do what needs to be done. Raising his Xalious staff to the edge of the barrier, words of occult magic are spoken with practiced ease. These verses pour forth in rapid succession, building arcane power rapidly into the crystal that rests atop the crown of the staff. The wood, harvested from the Xalious tree itself, amplify this power tenfold, and once the spell is ready, Aiden slams down the butt of his staff to discharge that stored up power into one tremendous blast of raw arcane power. It flows through the staff, up the barrier and focuses itself into a point atop the barrier, before it erupts down in a rain of lightning the aims to destroy the creature while it is trapped within. Trapped in the magical prison as it was, the basilisk has little hope of escaping, and with every tap of his staff against the ground, another blast of magical lightning reigns down on the creature.

The basilisk fought as hard as it could. It hissed and pissed, it swung its tail and jumped to claw at the barrier. But every dent it made, every divot it cut, every inch that became stone or held back its venom was replaced just as quickly as it could be harmed. Its fight became chaotic and little more than a dying creature's rage when the first bit of raw arcane power breached the barrier. The arcane strokes rained down, and though at first they only sped up the beast's growth lighting bolts became too much. Its body grew too fast; too much weight was put on its legs. Its inner organs outpaced what its body could handle; its lungs became too big to draw breath, its venomous ducts so large it dislocated its own jaw, its brain straining against its skull, and its eyes enlarged until they popped from their sockets and dangled on ever thickening veins. It let out one final shriek, its first call and its death rattle, before it succumbed. Though its skin, scales, and feathers were singed beyond all recognition by the arcane heat, though its body had all but burst, the inner organs needed for the panacea were safe and aged to their needed state.

Edenien could not see the basilisk after it hatched for her view was blocked by Nickolai. But the teenager moved to make room for Aiden’s attack, and the elf girl saw it for the first time. She gasped into her palms and stood stock still as if stillness were the same as invisibility. It’s an instinct nurtured in children who have seen too much violence. Abject terror makes them inanimate: a defense mechanism for the defenseless: moths, rabbits, children of war. The basilisk’s grotesque growth churned her stomach, but she dared not move. As soon as it was dead, its body still, the girl sprung to life again. “Bring it to grandfather!” she begged. “He needs the medicine! The teeth-spit!” She meant to say the venom. She ran to Aiden’s elbow and tugged at his clothes, oblivious to the exertion he just performed. “Hurry! Grandfather needs the medicine!”

Aiden watches as the lightning does its intended work. Basilisks were a tricky sort, capable of feeding off of magical energy. To defeat them, you had to overfeed the foul things with copious amounts of Magic at an insane rate. Melee was dangerous, and the thing's thick hide made for ranged attacks to prove all but useless. Either way, the job was done, and with a wave of his hand Aiden drops the wards in place and says. "Lets clean up, though take care to gather certain potential items from the body." Reaching down, Aiden manages to grab an eye, one of four, that had rolled over next to him. Nickolai moves to start weeding through the carcass, while Elenia tends to the child.

Edenien's grandfather was next to cured, even though he was still laying upon the soiled mattress dying. The basilisk was slain, and the mages were hard at work sifting through scorched viscera to gather what parts were needed to make the potion. The child turned from where stood next to Aiden if only to mouth 'you're going to be okay' to her grandpa, but what she saw made her squeal. The robed man stood, his body not wracked by pain or poison, his arms extended towards his granddaughter. "Grandfather!" Too young and under too much stress, the oddity of the situation did not dawn on the child; what she saw was her grandfather with his arms out for a hug. She bolted from Aiden's presence, squealing now out of happiness and the tears down her cheeks were out of joy. The robed man remained still until the child was within his reach. His arms did not move to wrap around her body; they settled for her head, a hand over her mouth and the other on her scalp. The strike was quick, though the sickening snap of her neck echoed through the cottage. And the thud of her dead body as it fell to the ground was matched by the phlegmatic, wet chortle from under the cowl. The robed man ripped the ratty rags of his chest, shedding the soiled drapes as easily as he snuffed out the child's life. Trajek looked upon Aiden, his enemy as much as his accomplice in death, decayed lips mouthing what could only be 'thank you.' Death, so fresh and so near, thrummed through the death knight's body. It poured from his eyes and dripped from his mouth; it seeped from his pours, a black sludge that coalesced in his palm. He bent low, his blackened hand pressed against the still warm corpse...and death amplified death. The ground beneath the dead basilisk trembled, and much like that foul ichor poured from his body, it bubbled up from the earth. It covered the basilisk where it only stuck to the arcanists boots. The earth called the corpse---it sunk within the black morass. Trajek, too, was pulled where all dead rest, the ground where he once stood turned much like a freshly dug grave. What was left was the child with every ounce of life and death pulled from her body. A mummified face looked back at Aiden, its head turned at an unnatural and fatal manner. Its leather skin contorted, her eyes cavernous holes, the word her mouth seemed to scream at the last was 'help.'

Aiden was outside, supervising the clean up as well as making sure Nickolai didn't grab useless things off the corpse. They were not necromancers, the dead hardly had too many uses, though the other eye did make its way into the sorcerer's hands. Scales could be uses in alchemy, some organs might fetch a decent price, but his days of following black market dealers was behind him. Just as they were nearing the end, the girl's scream of joy draws his attention. How was her grandfather up, when he should be under the effect of the spell still? Elenia was right behind the child, but stopped in the doorway. Aiden was on her in a flash, but the moment he reached the door he heard in. 'SNAP!' And the girl dropped dead. The two meet in a gaze, the shadowy man and Aiden. But before words of Magic could even formulate, the corpse was taken into the earth. Nickolai's scream down demanded Aiden's attention, to see the black ichor the man was stuck in eat away at anything living. Nickolai got out, but the foul substance was on him. Turning to face the mysterious man inside, Aiden saw him mouth his thanks, then disappear seemingly into the earth. Elenia, usually so stoic, broke down into tears as she ran to the lifeless husk of the girl. Knowing she was dead, and thus nothing he could do, Aiden turns to Nikolai. A creeping rot was on his robe, and ate as his boots, but quick thinking had the man discard of both with haste. The magic within, however limited, stemmed the substance enough to fend off him losing a limb. Taking care to ensure the threat has passed, Aiden examines the mages with him. Too many questions, no answers. Thunder him with the only thing he could do. "Get back to the tower. Report to the masters. I'll take care of this." There was a slight delay, and the sorcerer bellowed out in such a commanding manner. "NOW!" That the still shaken mages rushed off in a fright. Knowing they were gonna , but foul dark magic still lingers here, Aiden does what must be done. The fire rages for some time, magic controlling its endless hunger as to the nature the forest does not become threatened. Go hours Aiden watches the flames, the corpse of the child left within. For hours, even until time has slipped well into the early morning, the magus stood. The image of the dark man, the sound of the child's neck snapping. It all plays over and over. "Thank you" He sees the dark man mouth it over and over. He etches his image into his mind. The face of a man he will find. A man he will make pay for snuffing out the life of an innocent soul. A child he couldn't save. Things were not rights in Lithrydel, and now Aiden had been used by some unknown person, for an unknown reason. The dying flames cast a shadow over the mage, but the fires of vengeance burn bright within the depths of his eyes. With a single word, the mage vanishes from the scene, leaving naught but burning coals where once a cottage stood.