RP:An Eye For An Eye
Part of the Something Wicked Arc
Summary: The grumpy hunter trio meet Tovald, a strange and slightly unhinged giant whose quaint forest cabin turns out to be more of a creepy murder shack. Of particular note is the large emerald green skull painted upon one wall, which keeps watch over the dishevelled homestead and its occupant with eyes of eerie, dark mirrors. A member of an isolated coven, Isobel surveys the scene from afar through these scrying mirrors and decides not to risk letting Encara, Orikahn, and Aira leave the cabin alive, especially when it's revealed that Tovald may know more than the witches ever realised. Dark magic is cast as the witch forces Tovald to undergo his transformation into the enormous, aggressive bear once more.
Isobel NPC'd by Valrae! <3
Tovald's Cabin
If she'd been having a good day, Encara might've laughed under her breath at Orikahn's sheer indignation, or hidden a smirk behind a hand. But the day has been as kind to Encara as it has to the ruined camp they came from. Aslfur and his comrades are dead, the trees are crowding close around like a thicket of spears to trap them, and for the first time the drow worries for what the night may bring. Dusk is still a good half a day away but in this clearing, in the shadow of this dishevelled house and its equally dishevelled owner, she senses the foreboding that often precedes those dark and watchful nights. It's an unnatural fear twisting in her stomach - drow are not afraid of the dark. Encara scoffs, disguises it as a cough as she side-eyes Aira while Orikahn keeps the giant's attention firmly focused on the top of his fluffy head. "I don't know!" she whispers back, the words accompanied by a sharp elbow to the vixen's ribs (not a gauntleted one, at least). "I don't know— but it doesn't feel right." Scarlet eyes flick back to Tovald, narrow slightly, then Encara steps around Kahn to slip under the giant's arm and make her way into his home… uninvited, as always. "Yes, it's dangerous out here. We'll stay a bit if…" Her voice trails off into startled silence.
Tovald, who's been busy listening to Orikahn talk with an expression that's equal parts concerned, afraid, and morbidly curious, steps back to allow the other two hunters entry - he seems happy to accommodate, breaking out into a lopsided and toothy smile. "Awful!" he says cheerfully, which gives the impression he didn't actually take in most of the feline's words despite looking like he was. "Lucky for you my cabin is safe! The charms, see, they keep things… out." An arm like a tree trunk gestures toward one of the bone charms dangling from a nearby tree. The wind is dead; the forest is deathly silent. Tovald elaborates, "Bad things! But not little ones like you. Come in, have a drink by the fire and burn your demons out!" As he moves fully to one side, it becomes apparent what caused Encara to falter: the cabin -looks- like a bear charged through it, half the furniture shredded or tipped over, bits of broken chairs littering the bare dirt floor with dagger-sized splinters. The only item left relatively intact is a rickety bed piled with furs, pillows, and thick woollen blankets. One side of the home has become a makeshift meat storage, thick slabs of raw, bloody flesh left sitting in the open surrounded by remnants of the beasts that provided the food. Bones and ruined pelts add to the stench of something distinctly rotten in the home. Scores of marks gouge deep grooves in the walls, almost as if one of the creatures brought in to be skinned wasn't quite dead yet and made an attempt to escape. Tovald does not appear to register any of the mess, but what's perhaps the most startling is the symbol looming above it all like an omen. Slashes of dark green paint form the rough image of a skull on the wall directly across from the door - placed over the empty eye sockets are two obsidian mirrors, lending the skull an eerily watchful presence. Encara avoids looking directly into the mirrors, which emit a faint hint of dark magic and don't seem to reflect anything. She scrunches her nose, bemused and, somehow, more unnerved than she had been standing outside. Bad juju, indeed.
Aira is, of course, furious that the trio is even here having to deal with this…this mess. Of course it’s arguably their job; however, everything about being in this man’s presence, being ushered into his home, screams ‘trapped’. She’s just about to say as much when Encara elbows her in the ribs, a small grunt vibrating in the huntress’s throat as she turns narrow, unblinking eyes upon the drow. Aira didn’t care if she was a decent hunter, she was going to offer her up as finger food to the were-bear in a moment after that antic. But then Encara's waltzing into the home, and it’s all Aira can do not to throw her hands up in frustration. With the drow out of direct eyesight, Kahn is next on the list the earn the infamous Aira glare. Clearly, this was all his fault now. One hand finds purchase on her hip while the other gesticulates in the direction that Encara traipsed off to, deeper in this death cabin. ‘Do something!’ her eyes seems to say. But if one thing is certain, Aira has no plans on going further into the home. She would have to be dragged in.
Orikahn is cut off, mouth agape, by Tovald's booming reply, and before the sabercat can slather another layer of gore onto his description of the scene prior, Encara has seized the initiative and advanced. "Lucky, yes." The cat's teeth clench, and he growls beneath his breath. "Little, yes." He and Aira exchange glances. Gears turn within Kahn's mind. "Ah, but we are, uhm, very *superstitious* simple hunters with," with a tremor of disgust tugging at his upper lip, Kahn swallows his pride for the sake of the sell, "little minds and timid little hearts, assuredly. Leave the door open, and we will come in soon, when we remember our courage." In earnesty, Kahn isn't particularly eager to go inside either, especially with the odd brew of meat, musk, rot, and juju wafting out through the door. "We will peek through the door," he suggests to Aira. Whether she follows him or not, well, that remains up to the vixen. An extra blade might be handy in the cabin, but a pair of eyes outside might come in handy anyway, so who knows. Kahn pads up to the threshold and peers inside. At the first glimpse of the mirror-eyed skull, his own three eyes widen brightly, and he stops dead in his tracks, gripping the door-frame tightly.
Isobel should have given her watch over to Anata. For the third time her head slipped off of it’s perch in her hand and startled her into waking. She had been sitting over the cauldron for nearly two days, the heat and steam of the bubbling and foul smelling liquid rolling over her cheeks and climbing into her nostrils until it’s scent was all she could remember of the world. Even still, she sent the young witch away and kept on her perch. The bubbling liquid would eventually slow, the dark surface would still and reflect not her own image but the inside of a large cabin far from the place her coven called home. Candles dripped thick beeswax over the rough and chipped wood of the table that held herbs, thick spell tomes, bones and an empty pedestal. The emerald skull should have been there. Isobel’s tired eyes spring open in her sudden agitation. The witch straightens and waves her hand over the black water as a dark spell leaves her dry lips. As the surface of the water clears, Encara’s face ripples into view. A hiss of surprise and anger leaves Isobel. She throws her thin body off of her stool and snatches open a cabinet that was leaning precariously against a wall. The poppet she pulls from it was fashioned in Tovald’s image on one side and a bear on the other, a cord knotted six times around the pair of them. Muttering curses the witch peers over the cauldron and waits. She couldn’t leave them alive though. It was too risky. With a resigned moan, the witch waves her hands over the water again and begins her spell. The dark power that pulsed from the mirrors would rise and pulse in the air thickly, with an unknown source answering from deeper inside the cabin. Isobel continues her spell and moves to untie one of the knots with her cracked fingertips.
Encara had intended to search for clues while playing up the innocent act (which surely would've gone well), but finding herself faced with this unexpected scene of chaos, the drow is almost at a loss of what to do. Rather, where is she to start? To her quiet dismay, reason suggests the painted skull seems the most likely candidate; Encara shoots the mirrors another sidelong glance but keeps her face and body turned away from them as much as possible. Her family have made use of similar objects before. Ritual scrying is fairly regular within Delishan practices - priestesses scry in an attempt to glean some small insight into their Dark Mother's plans in the hopes they can attune their own to hers, and through this, she shows them the right path. Worried that someone could be watching her from the unknown, Encara has never felt comfortable performing the rituals herself. The sight of the black mirrors is too similar to the umbral pool that lies deep below her House, which draws painful, terrifying memories to the surface, and she fears the spiritual death that would come from staring into them to find nothing looking back. Still, their presence confirms one thing to her: someone is up to no good, and it probably isn't Tovald.
"Don't be long or you'll let the cold in," Tovald tells Kahn with an almost childish frown, the expression comically at odds with his massive frame and big, bushy beard. He can't seem to figure out what has the feline and Aira so tense and reluctant to get out of the chill and into his nice, warm, self-built cabin. "What about you, darkling? Ale? Beer?" Leaving the door ajar, the giant turns to the drow standing in his living room near the central fire pit - Encara barely flinches, tearing her gaze away from the skull, and blinks at him. "Uh. Either?" Nodding away to himself, Tovald begins to root around in a half-destroyed chest full of miscellaneous bits and pieces, bottles of alcohol being some of them. Quietly, she sizes him up while his back is turned. Her years in Frostmaw have, surprisingly, never forced Encara to kill a frost giant - and were he -just- a giant, she thinks the three of them could take him down with no trouble, but all things considered… Encara's gaze shifts to Orikahn, brows furrowing at the look on his face. "You've got, uh, an interesting mural here," the drow comments awkwardly, gesturing to the wall. "The skull, I mean. Family thing?" It takes a lot for her not to snort at her own words, but it does get a reaction from Tovald… not quite what she was hoping, however. The giant's whole body jerks, straightens very suddenly, and when he looks round his eyes are wild and frightening and yet strangely hollow. "What're you talkin' about. There's no skull," he says in a voice as cold as the grave.
If Aira weren’t in such a foul mode, she might have relished in Kahn swallowing his pride and down playing their intelligence, their size, their passion, but she’s still hyper-alert about this whole situation. When Orikahn opts to follow Encara inside she internally groans—the vixen torn between keeping with her pack and keeping guard at the only exit. Her hand twitches towards her hip where she keeps a knife sheathed, and, for a moment, opts to stand on the threshold of the cabin—one foot in and one foot out. She’s resolved herself to stay here when Torvald comments about letting the cold air in and the huntress is resigned to step fully inside and yank the door shut behind her. The bad juju is more palpable now, it permeates her core and presses against her bones. The vulpine ears atop her head flatten and her russet colored tail gives an agitated flick. Somewhere around her ankles, Aira feels the serpentine movements of a spectral ermine and his presence brings her some comfort, although it’s minuscule. Her fingers curl around the hilt of her blade but this little vixen is all too familiar with bad juju and she knows her weapons aren’t of use against it. So while, intellectually she knows she should keep her station near the door, Aira finds herself inching ever closer to the feline, trying to catch his eyes and then Encara’s. When the giant’s body jerks at the latter’s question, his eyes lacking their humanity, the blonde hairs on her arm stand on end. “This is bad…” she hisses to no one in particular.
Orikahn returns to the present with a wink, a blink, and a brisk shake of his big, furry head. Right, in they go. With Aira close beside him and the skull looming ominously over them, Kahn tries to find somewhere comfortable for the two of them to stand. This is, of course, impossible, as they are in a cabin that, though large in and of itself, feels very cramped when one must share it with Tovald. Orikahn's stomach does a small somersault. The contrast in atmosphere is sickening after having come in from the breezy outdoors. He gags audibly, tries to disguise it as a cough, and ends up spitting a wad of phlegm right onto the giant's floor. This distracts him from the conversation... distracts him until Aira's hissed warning strikes the feline's ears. His tail puffs double volume. In a single, mechanical movement, Kahn's bow is drawn and loaded. Eyes dart up to the skull, down to Encara, up again to Tovald. "How bad?" It's a practical question. Looks like they're about to get a practical answer, too.
Sure and dirty fingers slowly unknot the cord that binds the poppet as the words of Isobel’s spell grow louder. The whisper of her chanting sighs off of the dark mirrors, though no reflection glimmers from the smooth surface. The mention of the skull from Encara spurns the witch to move more quickly and soon all of the knots have been untied. With a release, the power leaves her and crouches in the cabin air like the charge of a storm before it breaks. It surrounds Tovald almost tangibly, dark and terrible. Isobel casts the cord aside and snatches up her blade, scoring her own palm deeply and letting the blood run over the face of the man and bear freely. With the last words of her spell spoken harshly, the fire beneath the cauldron flares and the woman cackles. “They’ll see soon,” She promises, peering deep within the dark water and waiting impatiently for the blood to flow.
Encara wishes Aira wasn't totally correct and that she wouldn't have to admit it, but right now, nothing is okay. The walls are beginning to talk, adding a layer of dark, unintelligible whispers to air already thick with tension and magic and rot, and if that isn't a sign things have gone south, she doesn't know what is. "I think I know what you mean by 'bad juju' now," she mutters wearily to the pair, but keeps her eyes on Tovald. Dimly it occurs to Encara that the giant still stands between her and Kahn and Aira, and most importantly, the door - the drow begins creeping to one side of the room, moving inch by inch as Tovald meets her gaze with an empty look. He hasn't noticed Orikahn's bow. "I told 'em not to do it," he says, soft words tinged with regret; his face creases, grief and torment etched into his features as if a horrific memory has risen unbidden to the forefront of his mind. Voice lowering to a hushed rumble that might pass for a whisper among frost giants, he looks down at his hands and utters the names of the woodsmen he called friends, "Aslfur, Bjorn, Gunnar and the others. I told 'em what the marks meant; I told 'em it'd upset the demons. Lived here all my life an' I know these forests like the back of my hand—" The sharp, sudden slap of one large fist into an equally large palm causes Encara to flinch back a step in alarm. "—I seen 'em round that one big tree a lot with their candles and whispers and wailing. They come three by three by three by three, on moonlit nights, at Summer's end, on the Winter Solstice. Years of tradition but now it's all ruined, ruined, ruined, RUINED." A whisper becomes a shout without warning, the deafening roar shaking dust from the eaves. All the hairs on the back of Encara's neck stand on end with dreadful anticipation and the air is choked with magic, making her head. The fire has been snuffed out as if by some unseen hand and coughs thick black smoke from its coals, yet the eyes of the skull gleam maliciously in the darkness— and still reflect nothing.
While speaking, Tovald's body has begun to tremble with a great and terrible need. He snarls, the shadows gone jagged around him, the angles of his face all wrong. "Destroyers and THIEVES. There's no skull; it's gone." The final word escapes almost in a sob and for just a moment, Tovald stops entirely, looking down at Encara. His silence is pleading but for what, she does not know. It's as if the world holds its breath before the plunge. Then Isobel's blood smears across the poppet, the spell is cast, and Tovald lurches and grunts in discomfort, stumbling against the cabin wall. As he drops to one knee and his moans turn to agonising cries and screams and growls, Encara exchanges a quick look with Aira and Kahn and breathes, "Run." Rather than make a leap for the door, however, the drow turns to the skull, stepping up onto the edge of the bed and reaching to snatch one of the mirrors free of its frame - it's quickly stuffed under her cloak and covered, but Encara has no time to shove it into her satchel. In the few seconds she's taken her eyes off Tovald, a gruesome transformation has taken place. Nails have lengthened to deadly claws, muscles shifting like liquid beneath skin that sprouted thick, coarse black hair and tore free of the leather jerkin and pants he'd been wearing. The giant's features have distorted out of shape, pulled and twisted into a long snout and a maw full of enormous teeth, long and sharp as swords. The monstrous bear that has shadowed Encara's thoughts now looms before her, snorting and growling angrily.
It lunges - Encara acts on instinct and leaps over the beast's head, skidding down its back and throwing herself toward the door. Tovald's claws catch on his bed frame and the entire piece of furniture is sent flying her way, forcing the drow to duck and cover to avoid being crushed. Wood splinters overhead and rains down on her but she snaps up, sharp eyes catching sight of a small burlap pouch tucked in the corner of the room that was beneath Tovald's bed. "Get that thing!" she shouts, pointing, not even knowing if Kahn and Aira are still here or if they've left her to her fate in this horrid little cabin. (Un?)fortunately, it is not likely to be around for much longer. The bear that was once Tovald is on a rampage and no walls are going to stop it - the massive creature is lashing out and swiping at anything close, and inevitably, it tears a large hole in the wall. Encara's not about to let that opportunity slip by and dives out through the gap, rolling into the snow while the bear bellows and careens after her. Walls sway and the cabin buckles uneasily.
“Very, very bad. Rynvale bad.” This is Aira’s answer to Kahn, her copper eyes never leaving Tovald’s frame as he dissolves into stories of warnings and sigils. She trusted the feline to remember how bad Rynvale was for them, and this promised to be even worse what with the bad juju swirling around the disheveled cabin. Aira begins to sidestep, closer to Kahn and Encara by circumstance. She pulls out her blade and swallows hard but she knows it’s of no real use. When the frost giant yells, it’s enough to startle the vixen who instinctively takes a step back. What happens next is curious in that in Aira’s mind it happens both quickly yet in slow motion. She sees the transformation—the fur sprouting from skin, elongating snout, fierce claws, and dangerous maw—but at the same time, she has enough time to be distracted by Encara’s movements towards the mirror. “Are you crazy?!” She hears herself say, whether it’s aloud or in her mind she doesn’t know. Running on adrenaline, Aira does what she always does, reacts without much thought to consequences. She ducks under Orikahn’s loaded bow and agile strides carry the foxkin in Encara’s direction. “If we die in here I’m going to kill you!” She snarls at the drow, picking up the nearest object and hurling it at the bear in an attempt to draw his attention away from the thieving dark elf. But Encara is quicker, already acting on her own instincts and moving up and over bear-Tovald putting her in a decent position to the door. Naturally, Aira’s eyes remain on her, angry that she had potentially put herself in harm’s way to assist the drow (and maybe because she had underestimated her as well); however, she’s calling out to ‘get that thing’ and Aira’s eyes swivel and try to decipher what she means. It takes some skilled weaving and head bobbing but Aira eventually sees it, a small bag tucked in the corner of the room. The vixen spares a moment to shoot Kahn an apologetic look should he happen to catch it before she drops her knife, the blade clattering to the ground…along with the rest of the huntress’s belongings and clothes. Out of the pile of cloth emerges a fox with the same disdainful, metallic eyes of Aira. Two could play at this shifting game! Fox Aira is off, able to navigate the raining debris with more grace in her smaller, more nimble form. Thankfully, she reaches the corner of the room, snatching up the pouch in her mouth without incident. Unfortunately, she is on her way back towards the exit when Tovald aims a splintered chair in her direction, catching her in the hip. Aira yelps, whimpering as she rolls with the impact, but keeps her grip on the bag. A piece of wood sticks out of her skin, staining her fur, but she is ever persistent and she stands shakily, limping towards the door as quickly as she can. The vixen would get out of this hell-cabin or die trying.
Orikahn feels his whiskers prickle again, the only warning he gets before foul magics and fouler voices emanate from the very walls. Uneasily, he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, a useless attempt to escape the dark witchcraft and the palpable uncleanliness it carries. In a moment of clarity, Kahn sees many things taking shape, forms of themselves poised and pitching, painting actions yet to come. There is a bag they must grab. Encara will flee. Tovald will chase, but not before throwing a chair at... "Aira!" Kahn calls out to her, but only her apologetic gaze answers. Has she already looked at him, or is it the look she will soon give? Upon Kahn's brow, his third eye burns with bright, eldritch light. He is moving. Had he been moving already? The Prime Hunter's bowstring is singing, and his arrows glitter through the air in a hissing stream to rain against the remaining mirror. It chips, cracks, and splinters asunder, raining obsidian across Tovald's floor. Kahn was running, is running. When had he started? He grimaces, and only now does Orikahn realize something has happened to him. There's no time to wonder what. The snow is biting and frigid. He's out of the cabin, and his bow again is singing, sting by sting by sting as he marches through the yard, peppering Tovald's receding form with vicious, razor broadheads.
The stench of the cabin rolls over Isobel as she leans, knotted brown hair hanging perilously close to the tar-like surface that gleams with the images of Tovald and the others. She’s hissing and muttering incoherently, her need for bloodshed pressing along her spine with the worry. He knew too much! The witch’s mind screeched. He knew too much and he was sharing too much! If he didn’t kill those three soon she was going to have to warn the rest of her coven. She was going to have to deal with their accusations and threats. She was going to lose control and they would never have the skull again! Isobel cried out as Encara pried one of the scrying mirrors from the wall. The witch pressed the heel of her already bloodied hand to her own socket and felt the warmth of new blood and an emptiness. Strangled cries escaped her. “That little… Get back!” Tovald has made the change now. Isobel screams, shaking the poppet in her rage, “Kill them! Kill them!” Her cracking voice echoes around her spartan room wickedly as the bed shatters in the cabin and the hex bag she and her coven had carefully placed is unearthed. Moving quickly away from the cauldron while holding her empty eye socket, she stumbles to the cage that sat hip high in the corner of the room. Hastily, she snatches out a dove and carries it over to her working table. She peers back into the water in time to see Aira, now a fox, taking the hex bag. Dove thrashing in one hand, Isobel uses her other to snatch up her blade. Her own blood stains the hilt and the table as she moves. Holding the panicked bird aloft she chants words similar to the ones she spoke before to call forth her power. She slides the blade over the bird’s neck and watches the dark rivets cover the white surface of the poppet. As she does this, Orikahn’s arrows shatter her final mirror. The world goes dark from the witch. Her scream echoes not only in her room but the cabin as well now. Her blade and the still twitching body of the bird fall to the floor as her body pitches wildly forward. “Run! Run!” She croaks, her broken lips nearly brushing the bloody poppet. Her final spell pulses out as she falls to her knees and presses her fingers at the empty holes where her eyes once were. Rage and fear of equal measure fill her as she whispers a vow to find these hunters again. She must keep her coven’s secret. She must find these strangers and bade Tovald kill them... And next time they meet in battle, she’ll be ready.