RP:Baby Won't You Light My Fire
Part of the Surface Tension Arc
Synopsis: Devastated by Nymh's betrayal, Laezila goes to Gevurah to willingly accept her punishment for being at fault and trusting a traitor and spy. Gevurah deviates from the typical drow punishment of public humiliation and torture, and opts instead of a little old school power play -- literally. She takes Laezila to a secret shrine to the Spider Goddess, and there performs the spider-demon's ritual to enter a deeply spiritual, hallucinogenic, and downright trippy state where Laezila and Gevurah have merged arcano-spiritually.
There, she hunts out the source of Laezila's ability to create and manipulate epic quantities of fire, and steals it for herself. But it isn't a smooth operation, for the Spider Goddess has petty grudges and a wrath to exact on Laezila, and would rather ruin the Matron's body than see Gevurah through to her goal. Gevurah races against the goddess's intervention and snags the fire power in the nick of time; Laezila loses her ability to create fire, and Gevurah has it but will need to figure out how to use it effectively now.
Back at the temple, Laezila's fire ability let loose a final swan song and damaged the temple, harmed its worshippers, and they want revenge. They close in on the two drow nobles to end their lives for dark purposes, but Gevurah has a one-use charm back to daddy's tomb. She's about to flee when she hesitates, for reasons she won't admit to herself, and risks her own neck to take Laezila with her in the escape. The collapse at Keter's Tomb, unconscious, weak, downright vegetative.
Abandoned Archery Range (Now Goblin Military Camp)
Gevurah skirts the outskirts of the foul goblin camp. She’s dressed in full drow power regalia, lest the goblins forget who’s boss. Their leader, Klongy, isn’t present, but Gevurah doesn’t seem the least bit worried. A few drow mages, foot soldiers in the war, sit among the goblins strategizing how to best use their disparate skills as a unified force in battle. Gevurah whispers with the D’Artes weasel, Izzerin who jots down figures in a thick book.
Laezila had to see this for herself; goblins working under the command of drow. This was outside of the normalcy for D'Artes command, often finding themselves with superiority and a complex that dictated that, if anything, the green little creatures would be nothing more than slaves to the drow. She was more of a goblin's stature, herself, by sheer height -the Second Matron was a small and petite drow that was the distinct revelation and betrayal of her youth, despite her cunning and calculating nature. The size was made up for not only in her deadly skill and intellect, but also the accompaniment of two enormous drow men, lycanthropes, garbed in darksteel platemail armor that was overlaid with one another to expand and contract to suit the form taken after a shift. They stood at least head and shoulders above most drow, and were broad to boot, with wielded axes and broadswords that were surely as intimidating as their size. Between them moved Laezila, to the forefront of the camp with striking azure eyes piercing it from beyond that ivory, refurbished mask.
Gevurah senses the magic emanating from Laezila’s petite powerhouse frame and greets her with a toothless smile. “Matron Laezila. Come to see the latest cannon fodder, I presume,” she says in drow. “It is fortunate you should be here. I was wondering what became of your bard. My people say your people say that he no longer resides in your home — or at least has not been seen.” ‘My people say your people’ is polite drow talk for ‘spies.’
Laezila 's massive entourage of two large drow lycans growled simultaneously in their disapproval of Gevurah's immediate speech concerning their latest traitor. They were silenced immediately by the lift of a slender and gloved hand of the tiny matron, and both took a single step backward in order to give the two some space. "Your people are correct," the young woman started, her voice without emotion from the carefully contoured augmententation and muffling of her faceless mask, as well as her facial expression veiled. "It is unfortunate that I protected him when I did. He has failed me, betrayed me even. I trust that you have been drooling at this chance to punish me."
Gevurah lifts a brow in surprise that Laezila does not try to excuse the absence or conceal it as something of her own design. This betrayal must have hurt her personally. “Drooling at the opportunity…” Her head cants side to side as she judges her own enjoyment. True, it’s always fun to punish and humiliate others, but Laezila has not be a personal sore in her side. She shrugs. “Why do you come to me accepting of this fate. Do you have something to bargain?”
Laezila 's guards were literally drooling, though it was in the sheer and wanton desire to rip things apart with their bare hands, let alone their malicious weapons rather than any excitement at punishing something. Laezila, on the other hand, was most personally hurt, and she ached inwardly with the continued lack of trust that she could give because of the unceasing betrayals and hurts inflicted upon her. Her hands spread in display of nothing, gesture of having nothing, "I cannot bargain for a traitor. I brought him into our trust, against your better judgement, and I have failed us because of his betrayal."
Gevurah scans Laezila from head to toe for guile, but that scarred face where deceit is best detected is hidden beneath a mask. The high priestess twitches her fingers, palm up, fingers pointing at the mask. “Remove the mask. What I choose to do depends greatly on whether or not I believe your words.” She signs for Izzerin to look away out of respect for the Matron: a small act of kindness purposefully crafted to go a long way. The First Daughter can sense that she may have an opportunity to seize something even more important that Matron flesh in this moment. “His betrayal was a given. His surface-loving heart, his soft character, was always known to me, but perhaps this is where your age betrays you.” Gevurah squares her shoulders and lengthens her back with an audible crack. “Back when the matriarchy was still in power and the spider goddess ruled over the drow, do you know how a disgraced Matron would be punishment? What was the worst punishment she could, and would, receive?”
Laezila was extremely hesitant to remove her mask, and it showed for several moments after the demand of Gevurah; she loathed the way that she was talked down to, that the First Daughter was able to command her, and her guards did as well. They literally tensed and had enormous muscles ripple visibly beneath taut, ebony skin. But that slender and gloved hand lifted in order to gently pull the mask from her face, and lowered it to reveal that young face with three parallel scars diagonally ripped through it. Her azure eyes cast downward in obvious discomfort, "No," she said softly in reply to Gevurah, truthfully. Her voice lowered in a plea, "These all can see my face, Gevurah..."
Gevurah gazes upon the scars, gauges Laezila to be speaking mostly truths, and closes her hand with a flourish to indicate that she is done and the mask may be replaced. She inhales deeply and pauses, like a priest preparing to give a sermon. “During those times, he Matrons on the council would dole out their own punishments. Grabs for power and wealth, public humiliation, ridicule. And sometimes, less than half the time, a First Daughter would usurp her disgraced Matron, aided by the most terrible punishment of all. For the Matron’s power would be weakened by none other than the Spider Goddess herself. Disappointed by those who failed her, she would take back some of her gifts.” Her head jerks to the side towards a shrug. “Shame though, that system is no longer in place. You have no heir that could challenge you even in a weakened state. That would have worked out well for you, no?” Gevurah laughs darkly. She dismisses Izzerin and any commoner of any House in the area so that it is just her and Laezila, and a couple of her guards. “So I suppose, if I were to ask my Patron, he would insist that I must publicly humiliate you and your house, dangle you beaten from our towers, slander your house’s name and reveal its weakness. But… I don’t want to do that if I don’t have to. There is another way. There is something you could give me, and in exchange this affair with Nymh will not be made public. Rumors will be drowned out by our House’s unified story. Heads will roll, but not yours. And you can have the honor of publicly executing the traitor Nymh and his enablers, none of which will fall directly on you. But it comes at a price, of course.”
Laezila quickly lifted her mask to press it back over her face, to fill herself once more with the distinct confidence and raw power of a cunning cruelty. "Nor do I draw power by the Spider Goddess, and certainly delivered by a First Daughter of another House is only by the sheer virtue of your Patron and my acceptance of fate. Tiphareth would be a fool to do such and bring House D'l'Sel D'issan's vengeance -my House would be destroyed, but this war would end in a loss. That would be, of course, -your- failure." She lifted her masked face to meet the gaze of the D'Artes daughter with the hardened stare more befitting a matron than the young girl that Gevurah had easily frightened. "I think this way would benefit both of us, would it not? After all, Nymh was the one to escape from -your- prisons, a fact that I had hidden. So what is your price? Beating me senseless? Taking my power? Perhaps you best dangle me from your towers." She was growing angry, mostly at her position as well as the personal hurt at Nymh's hands.
Gevurah grins toothlessly at Laezila’s take on the war, the best strategy moving forward, and the priorities of House D’Artes. A rebuttal would reveal too much about D’Artes’ schemes. Instead, Gevurah says “I’ll be sure to let Patron Tiphareth know you think he is a fool.” She winks as her grin splits over pointed teeth. The D’l’sel D’issan guards are eyed with suspicion. Her price tage is likely not something Laezila would want broadcasted even to her own soldiers. Besides, what if there are spies around? Given present company, there most certainly are. The High Priestess draws a canteen from her purse and sprinkles dried blood flakes from an enemy and the eye of a fly into the water. She whispers a quick spell then sips the magical concoction. She blows out a bubble that floats towards Laezila and erupts against her ear. Soundlessly it delivers the magically protected message: I know how to do what the Spider Goddess once did. Come with me to Her hidden temple, give in to the ritual, and give me your power to create and manipulate fire.
"Is testing my patience truly what you desire to do?" The masked figure of the matron said with subtly narrowed eyes; an expression that could've been either to more clearly scrutinize the other drow, or out of some irritation, expressed at the woman's dark grin and retort. She did not like the pleasure that the first daughter derived from this, she did not like this situation at all; she had come with honesty to preserve their friendship, quickly to find Gevurah more willing to gut her than she had anticipated. "I am accepting punishment for Nymh's betrayal-" a personal betrayal that continued to hurt so badly the psyche and heart of the toung drow, "If what you seek is posturing for your own ego, I suggest you find amother lackey. I am still matron, and still commanded by none. This, this acceptance- it is through our goodwill, through our friendship that I admit you were correct; that I was wrong.". The words secretly offered were not addressed, not yet.
Gevurah waves a hand as if to wash away her own needling. "I was teasing you with my comment regarding the Patron." She adopts a more somber expression, befitting Laezila's hurt at Nymh's betrayal. Empathy was never amongst Gevurah's talents. "It is a credit to your rank and character that you accept my punishment. I have informed you of the punishment I believe to be most appropriate. Liekwise, out of goodwill and through our friendship, I have carefully considered a punishment that is private, that in no way harms your reputation or your House's perceived power. We can go now and be done with it at once, so that at Andon D'chath's first light tomorrow the slate between us is cleared of Nymh's ugliness."
Laezila slowly, almost hesitantly, shook her head, "That will not do for you, Gevurah D'Artes. You will be considered weak. You must make a public example, to further instill your command, and who better to make an example of than I? For my life, for my House's life, and to be cleansed of Nymh's betrayal," she very nearly spat that behind her mask, "I offer you that private punishment. But you must also make use of the public one; I will persevere -my House will think me stronger, follow me more. Your house will think you strong, and your underlings less likely to betray you." Her small chest rose and fell with a deep inhale of uncertainty, as if accepting of this fate.
Gevurah fans a hand as if a servant to the Matron’s wisdom. “If you so counsel, then let us do both.” She concedes to both the public and private punishments and begins to walk eastward, lingering for Laezila to accompany her. As they walk, the high priestess says, “We can agree on the details of the public punishment, for I am satisfied with exacting my private punishment. Beyond that, in the public sphere, it is a political move we play as allies. Right now, I would like to get the private punishment out of the way, to right this wrong and move forward without a look back.”
Laezila was not particularly fond of this private punishment, but it was necessary as was the public one; such a small-framed and young matron, the D'l'Sel D'issan had to forcibly steel herself. Though it was all well-hidden behind her ivory and faceless mask to only yield the visage of striking, hardened light blue eyes. "So eager?" She commented more wryly with that stare upon Gevurah as she turned to begin her trek eastward, though the young drow female didn't lag behind, trailed of course by those two massive lycan drow, armored in their layers of darksteel platemail. "I am curious to this particular desire of yours, First Daughter, though I concede."
Gevurah grins at Laezila’s comment on her eagerness. As they walk, she grabs a bat wing from a hidden pocket in her full skirt and tosses it skywards. The lone wing remains lifeless until it reaches the apex of its arc, then flaps around like a disoriented bird before diving towards the drow camp, still just one decapitated, leathery wing. “Curious?” Her lips tug into an aborted smile. “I suppose it must be strange to you, a drow without religion, to understand the motives of someone like me.” She shrugs as they slip past the rancid debris of the goblin camp and into the cool, sheltered air of the forest. The humidity soothes her, for it reminds her of the dankness of home. She leads Laezila in a direct path towards the Gualon swamps. Halfway to the the bog, her entourage make their presence known passively, not trying to alarm the Matron or her lycans. The captain hands the bat wing to Gevurah then slips away, given the noble women space.
The Swamp
Laezila 's striking eyes glanced left and right as they moved southward along the path and toward the Gualon bog and the city beyond, registering the passive introduction of more soldiers and guards. She only had the two. Both of the lycan drow tensed as they moved in their cadence behind their matron, and placed simultaneously their hands upon their weapons; one a large battleax and the other a wide scimitar. Laezila, however, did not do that. Instead she continued to walk and talk, as it were, putting some degree of faith in her D'Artes 'friend'. "Your motives are religious, then?"
Gevurah rips a few handfuls of leaves from branches as they leave the forest, and shreds them in her hands. She whispers an incantation into her palms and the leaves dry and wither. As they walk, she tosses the leaves before their steps, converting swamp into terra firma for a few seconds to support their weight as they pass. At Laezila‘s question, her brows knead. “Yes... and also traditional.” As they near Gualon, she begins to remove everything that marks her as a D’Artes and stuffs it into her satchel. Her enchanted piwafwi, expensive and delicately enchanted, she removes and trades the captain of her guard for his rogue’s piwafwi. This she drapes over her robes so that they cannot be seen easily. “The story I told you, about the balance of power, the way the Spider Goddess intervened to punish and reward Matrons in accordance with the quality of their service… While Vakmatharas is the true god, there is some wisdom to the Spider Goddess’s intervention.” The piwafwi covers her legs as she fishes out her bustle and folds over her skirt’s waistband several times to lift the hem. All fo this she does without missing a step, or fumbling with any button. “We need to enter the orc city. There will come a point where none of our guard may follow us. From this point forward, do not use names - any names, of those present and those not present.”
Laezila 's crystalline blue eyes narrowed slightly and suspiciously at Gevurah; Vakmathras' followers never ever conceded anything to the Spider Goddess -especially not the First Daughter of the D'Artes household. The gears within the young drow's head begin to turn and whirl and grind in suspicious thought. Yet, the woman said nothing, nor did she remove that familiar and distinctive ivory mask as she followed behind the older of the two females. "The eccentricities of religion," the more petite of the two muttered as she traveled in the wake of the other, concerning the secrecy, "Will she not strike you dead upon entering something sacred?"
Gualon City
Gevurah knows that when you’re this close to the top of the pyramid all the hard and fast rules only apply in a downward direction. So long as she doesn’t cross her Patron, she can bend the rules set in stone that seem unbreakable to those born less fortunately. And on the verge of an important prize, she’s willing to see just how far she can push before the rules snap back in her face. No risk no gain. “Like you say, the eccentricities of religion.” Just as she’s about to step on the road that leads to Gualon, she stops short and whispers to Laezila and their coterie, “No names, no titles.” For the city guard’s benefit, she leaves her face unhooded, but as soon as they enter the city, the hood comes up. She remains silent until their next crossroads.
Laezila pulled her own hood up and over her masked face, in order to cover the ivory piece; as they reached the next crossroads, the matron's personal guard fell away. The young and petite drow female didn't speak out of sheer mimicry of Gevurah's manner, movements, and style, but her fists clenched and unclenched nervously. She didn't know what, exactly, she was walking into.
Gevurah dismisses her own guard as well. If she were in Laezila’s shoes, she’d be nervous as well, and so the High Priestess takes extra care not to make any sudden or threatening movements until they reach their destination. She slips into the Gualon Clinic and palms gold to a nurse who knows what gold and ebon faces equate. The nurse draws curtains and opens and closes doors, ushers patients and other staff without raising any suspicions, with the efficacy of a practiced pro. Gevurah knows exactly where to go to descend into the subterranean. Through a network of tunnels, she leads the Matron to the last of the Spider Goddess’s active temples of worship.
The young matron was a dangerous woman despite her appearance of slight frame and petite build, and to underestimate her led often to the death of many foe, and will to many more. As the last of Gevurah's guard is dismissed, the woman eased her tension just a bit, but there was still the ripple of her lithe muscles that signaled her ability and expectation to spring to her own life's defense. Before she, too, entered the Gualon Clinic, the D'l'Sel D'issan matriarch palmed her mask to pull it from her face and beneath her hood in order to hastily hook it beneath her billowing cloak and on some apparent latch to her form-fitting garb beneath. This exposed those distinct and familiar scars that marred her face from forehead to jawline, and the nervous tick of touching at them as the confidence of her mask seemed to fall away. "Does the Spider Goddess protect from listening ears?" She whispered.
The Secret Shrine to the Spider Goddess
Gevurah senses Laezila’s tension and maintains as much distance between herself and the anxious matron as the tunnels physically allows. She nods approvingly at the matron’s decision to reveal her face. Her scarred face is less likely to be recognized than her tell-tale white mask. “If she deems it fit to do so,” she answers. So, no, probably not. They arrive at the temple without ambush. The small chamber and altar faintly echo the once glorious cult of the Spider Goddess. The fall from power is apparent in the second-hand materials, but the priestesses who tend to the shrine carry on as if oblivious to their historic defeat. Gevurah nods to the High Priestess as she enters and greets her by name and with familiarity. They don’t seem close, but the recognition is unmistakable in both drow’s eyes and body language. The High Priestess addresses Gevurah as “Binah.” Gevurah/Binah explains that she is here to do the Spider Goddess’s bidding, to correct a wrong. The High Priestess asks who Binah’s companion is. She must not have been expecting a straight answer for she accepts Binah’s ambiguous reply that she is a disgraced daughter from a lower house in need of discipline and purification. Binah approaches the altar and bows her head then lures Laezila, aka the disgraced, to a corner of the room where a bookshelf stands. She finds a tome quickly in the stack, familiar with the shelf’s catalog as well as this place and its people. “The process will be painful,” she whispers to the Matron. “But you will survive it, and thus our alliance will survive. The ritual asks that you be restrained, chained to the statue of the Spider Goddess at the altar. for symbolic purposes, and perhaps to strengthen your resolve in accepting this punishment.” She draws a basket out from under the bookshelf and pulls out three feet of chain, capped at both ends with deep red leather cuffs. Black spider silhouettes have been stamped in a geometric pattern on the leather.
Laezila, on the other hand, felt more tense the further they drew toward the shallow shrine and into the embrace of the Spider Goddess' deceptive followers. Binah, the woman called her, with familiarity and recognition. Immediately the young matron's strikingly blue gaze sought out the form of the First Daughter and narrowed in suspicion; Gevurah was not a follower of Vakmathras. This was a dangerous secret to behold, or even the implication thereof, and it put the young girl on such edge that she would be privvy to this that she could not help but begin to suspect this was the orchestration of her own death. Laezila didn't speak in return to Binah's words just yet, as she was lured toward the bookshelf and the chain was pulled out -her hand moved to the hilt of her bladed whip as she stared at the D'Artes daughter, tense and readied to fight. But it was brief, before the matron saw the necessity for her House to survive, even beyond the fact that she very well could die here. So her hand is -slowly- lowered until it rested at her side and they moved to the center of the altar, the petite little frame of the drow woman beginning to, with the lack of the confidence her mask inspired, tremble as she lifted her hands over her head to be chained at the wrists around the statue.
Gevurah, or is it Binah?, flattens a hand and lowers it as if trying to calm a wild beast. "Sister." She gestures for Laezila to follow but never uses force -- it would be too dangerous to spook a Matron unnecessarily. "I know trust and friendship mean little among our kind, and power is everything. Then know that in my own ambition for power, I am empowered by having you as an ally, alive and -- after this punishment -- well." And this was the truth, though who would risk trusting the word of a drow?
As she speaks she guides Laezila to the statue and, if permitted, cuffs each wrist to onyx spider legs on opposite sides of the statue, like a crucifixion. Laezila is left to stands on the strength of her own legs so that for the moment there should be no pain. Gevurah steps around an altar so that she is facing the Matron with nothing but the altar and a massive stone bowl between them. The High Priestess of Vakmatharas mixes powerful reagents (spider eggs and silk, black quartz, blood, and so forth) for the Spider Goddess, and prays in the dialect of the Spider Goddess, albeit with frequent pauses and references to the spellbook she took from the shelf. It is clear that Gevurah is a rookie at this. At times, the High Priestess of this temple intervenes to help Gevurah get it right. Grind the eggs like this. Wave the feather like that. The other priestesses watch, and some lend their voice and strength to the ritual, refraining the final line of each of Gevurah's verses.
Gevurah exhales with relief, because without these true worshippers she may fail here today. The Spider Goddess doesn't always answer her call for she is a fickle deity, jealous of Gevurah's service to Vakmatharas, but covetous of a faith-minded First Daughter.* Hopefully the Spider Goddess enjoys knocking down a peg this faithless Matron, but without killing her. Hopefully. Who knows with demon gods with axes to grind? But Gevurah is confident (the hot air kind of confidence that's all bloat in the gut and no hard evidence) that she probably won't accidentally kill Laezila today. Fingers crossed. Figuratively and literally, too, as Gevurah joins her palms and weaves her fingers through eight different positions, like a divine, secret handshake between herself and the Spider Goddess. She separates the potion she brewed into two bowls and pours one over her head, then pours the other bowl over Laezila's head. It smells mostly of blood, and a little of fermentation. The spider silk in the concoction shimmers silver and gold, in pulsing bursts of light, on both their heads. Gevurah opens a small wooden chest, carved in the shape of a spider and painted black, and pulls out between her thumb and index finger a sharp-edged, navy blue jewel. She tests it by cutting her own finger along its edge, then approaches Laezila with a hesitating glance and sly smile that promises a little pain.
She places the jewel at the center of her own brow, where the third eye is rumored to be, then presses her forehead against Laezila's so it cuts into her skin as well. The cut is thin and slivered. The jewel wedges between their flesh, then starts to draw them in towards eachother like a magnet, forehead on forehead, nose on nose. Gevurah grips Laezila's shoulders to help keep her still as she chants. The priestesses join in.
This may take a while, for the concentration necessary is deep and difficult to obtain. They must quiet the mind, then the sub-mind, hitch a ride on a spiritual wave, and dive into both Laezila's and Gevurah's well springs of magic, and simulatenously merge and behold both. It could take an hour just to get this far, but Gevurah will know when they've arrived. As will Laezila, for the world will fade away. All will go black, then searing white. Their bodies will disappear, and yet they will feel as if they are swimming in a blue sea the consistency of full fat milk. At last the hallucinogenic in Gevurah's potion seeps into their pores and eyes and gives them a tool to better visualize their surroundings. Their bodies will appear first, naked but without detail, like semi-transparent mirages in this arcane sea. Little by little, the sea will coagulate into a series of bubbles and Gevurah will take Laezila's ghostly hand and go from bubble to bubble, searching for something. All the while, their bodies begin to feel like balloons, slowly expanding, dizzying, soon to be painful. In this place they communicate without words. To say they can communicate telepathically is a base, childish explanation. They are beyond the realm of the psionic. They communicate because their most base consciousness are conjoined. And so, it is without words, that Gevurah makes her desires clear to Laezila, and instructs her to try to cat a fire spell, right now, shoot a fireball. Something simple.
Laezila certainly permitted the older woman to cuff her wrists to the onyx spider legs on either side of the statue, much akin to a religious sight of crucifixion, or perhaps and more appropriately, an execution. The maskless and young matron did not like it; she enjoyed none of it, and to top it all off, the normally strong and resolute little woman did not have her mask, thus lacking the confidence that it gave her. Her face, scarred by that claw mark of three parallel scars from her forehead to her opposite jawline, no longer bore the brunt of callousness and calculating indifference, but rather she appeared all the more like a scared little girl. Which, in truth, she was, even as she blatantly and physically fought to keep such an emotion under wraps.
The situation quickly devolved; the young and sometimes naive matron did not know these other drow, and thus her closest ally was Gevurah, the same one that would deliverforth the punishment upon her diminutive frame. "Gevurah..." She whispered and her eyes widened as they began to swipe side to side in an anxiety and fear that was quickly becoming overwhelming for the D'l'Sel D'issan. Without that mask, without that symbol of her strength, she was no matron -she was a young woman that has barely ascended into adulthood. That mask gave her everything to rule -the confidence, the calmness, the determination, and the ambition. It was not some enchantment, but the sheer physical symbolism of her face being hidden that offered these. "...I don't want to do this anymore," she whispered even more frightfully than before, when Gevurah pressed her forehead against the matrons, wincing as she felt the slight pain.
Searing white shot through her vision and body, and then a mess of some setting and being she did not recognize, only made safe in her mind by the presence of Gevurah. She did not understand what was going on, or why, but rather only that Gevurah was there like an anchor to safety. A dangerous anchor. You see, the matron openly did not follow any gods, and did not value them as the society had; first against the Spider Queen, and now against Vakmathras, she had enchanted herself with many many wards of protection against divinity in order to be secure. With falling ill recently (though she recovered) she had to lower those wards in order to allow being healed, and has not since found one of sufficient skill to re-ward herself. She was vulnerable to the Spider Queen, especially in this ritual to her. So as Laezila lifted her hand in this bizarre realm, and as that flame lit upon her palm, the Spider Queen took vengeance. She took her petty squabble in retribution against the young, petite matron. The 'balloon' of the matron suddenly shifted in collapse upon itself, and outside the hallucination, the other drow might be able to see the way that the girl's body, on display from the nature of her binding, was pulling in on itself. Ribs cracked audibly as the matron screamed in utter suffering and anguish, her extended arms in attempt, vainly, to come down to her body in order to relieve the pain, but the bindings did not allow this. The Spider Queen wasn't going to kill the matron of the second House, perhaps out of some spite to Vakmathras in allowing someone that openly refused to worship him live, but she certainly was going to make her suffer.
"Gevurah!" The hallucination likely would rip away after allowing Gevurah her absorbtion of the skill, or perhaps remained, but either way, Laezila screamed her name in some plea for aid, some cry for help; where was her mask? If only she had, this pain could be endured, could be faced with grunts and silence.
"No!" Gevurah growls as the Spider Goddess intervenes, threatening that which Gevurah lusts most: Power. All she wants is Power. All of it. And right now, this one piece of it: this power to create and control epic quantites of fire. Yes, Gevurah can light a votive candle in His name, but raze an entire swath of forest like Laezila did? Gevurah can't, and she needs that -- that need that burns through her better judgment and leaves her wild and desperate. Connected like this to Laezila, she can feel the petite drow's failing body and life force, but not for a second does this make her worry for the Matron. She worries for herself. She worries that she will be robbed of her goal a breath away from tasting it; and as she worries the milky blue sea begins to thin. Stop, she tells herself, Focus. She can't worry about loss. Fear, longing, desperation, these are distractions. WWTD (what would Tiphareth do?)
Recalling her training as a priestess, she focuses her spiritual energy and concentrates on the task at hand. Her worries melt away like the skin at Laezila's joints. Her new focus sustains the hallucination just long enough for her to find the arcane sphere which represents Laezila's ability to create and manipulate fire, and she stuffs it into one of her own arcane bubbles at random. She doesn't have time to think about what she is doing. This arcane-spiritual bridge will collapse at any moment, because The Spider Goddess doesn't give a rat's ass about Gevurah right now, that much is clear, and it makes perfect, infuriating sense. That eight-legged demon's Wrath focuses on Laezila, and the hallucination pops out of existence. They are spun back into their bodies by a centrifugal force, heads spinning, stomachs flipping. Gevurah's spiritual exhaustion racks her physical body as well and she collapses forward onto the matron.
Laezila's fireball, the singular one in the hallucination, represented dozens in the physical realm, and has burned one of the priestess's arms, and singed several books, ruined reagents. Gevurah didn't know that would happen. Whoops. The worshippers of this temple are pissed, and Gevurah and Laezila are weak and vulnerable. They too want Power above all else, and they see an opportunity here to claim Gevurah and Laezila for their own dark purposes. The pull Gevurah by her hair, separating the two Trist'oth nobles. The sudden jerk lifts Gevurah from unconsciousness. She fumbles for the D'Artes insignia hidden in her breast and pulls it against her chest. One spell and one slap, and the enchanted insignia will teleport her to safety. It's a one-use get out of hell free card, and she's fairly certain this is hell. She can escape right now, and she's about to utter the word, when she hears Laezila moan.
Something stops Gevurah from abandoning the matron. She would never admit it's something as sentimentally stupid as friendship, but then why does she hesitate? Political bargaining, is the excuse she invents. But this excuse comes a second too late after the hesitation, a second too late to convince. It doesn't matter. She feels the need to save Laezila, and she's too weak to do anything but follow her most base instincts. With what strength she has left, she fights against the priestess and reaches over her shoulder to take Laezila's body, any part of her body. She strains, for precious milliseconds she chooses to rescue Laezila too, each millisecond a risk to her own life. The priestesses are already chanting, the bile is already rising, the skin perspiring blood, the vision blurring, the hearing fading, but she reaches, and just as her finger tips make contact with Laezila she slaps her insignia with her other hand and the duo disappear.
They reappear collapsed in Keter's tomb, in the bowels of House D'Artes, with no guards anywhere in sight. Gevurah comes to on her belly like a worm and inches against the ground towards Laezila, too weak to stand. She weakly slaps her hand over Laezila's mouth to prevent her from casting any spells. "Lae.." she huffs. The breath shudders out of her. "D-" She can't finish a word. The world goes black.