RP:Drow Stalking, Bad For Your Health

Part of the A Line Drawn in the Sand Arc

Part of the Home Sweet Home Arc

Summary: Sykule, on instruction from Mcracken, spies on Gevurah in Trist'oth to gather information for his tentacular employer. He finds Gevurah engaged is lethal politics in the Temple to Vakmatharas, then follows her to the Black Gates outside the Dead Caves. The High Priestess detects him, and Sykule barely escapes with his life. If at first you don't succeed, try again and charge the kraken triple. Eventually Sykule follows Gevurah into the Dead Caves and discovers a secret, isolated cell with a very important prisoner: the former archdruid of Sage, Liana.

Temple of Vakmatharas, Trist'oth

High Priestess Gevurah leads weekly rituals at the Temple of Vakmatharas in Trist'oth. She began holding these rituals shortly after the rebellion led by Laezila. It was an excellent opportunity to cull the disloyal from the crowd. Those she deemed to be sympathetic to Laezila's revolt were rounded up and executed by the dozens, for she is an efficient iron fist. In recent months the rebel-slayings have thinned out, for there are few left. As stated above: efficient iron fist. But Gevurah discovered that the weekly service in the temple is a useful political tool. What more, worship attendance is up! Fearful commoners would hate to have their inattendance mistaken for disloyalty. Thus, the temple is crowded. Several D'Artes guards stand sentry in shadows. Gevurah stands at the altar and finishes the final incantation. Once the final hairless rat is slaughtered, its blood sprayed like a blessing over those in the first few rows, the worshippers are free to mingle. Gevurah meets with an informant who reports he has no incense. The High Priestess understands the code.

During the sacrifices, the crowded room was filled with clamor and shouts of worship to Vakmatharas and the horrid sound of blood being spilled. Among them was a young drow, who appeared to be one of the acolytes, with his ceremonial clothes partially covered in blood. To anyone it would appear the elf was euphoric and frenzied by the rites, but internally he was watching his surroundings, trying to see what was underneath the actions of those around him. To him there was beauty and meaning in death, as a force to renew life. But something to be respected, not worshiped. He had learned all he could about the city and his target, Gevurah, before coming to this city of imposters. And now he was one of them - of many among the crowd, he was sure - Once the sacrifices were done, they were given a moment to rest and socialize. The young drow used that moment to speak to one of the priests about a certain fable he read, and maybe subtly learn more about the Temple's schedule, and Gevurah's personal agenda.

Gevurah disappears into a back room to press a priestess from a rival house for information. The priest who speaks to Sykule-the-fake-drow (let's call him "Syke, not a drow!" or "Syke!" for short) grows nervous and shifty-eyed. They're in a crowd surrounded by people who would love to inform on these two conspirers in exchange for the ruling house's favor and gold. Speaking out of turn about the First House could land you in hot water, or acid, depending on which ritual Gevurah is performing. But Syke! lucked out, as this priest has a vendetta against House D'Artes for Gevurah killed his brother for joining Laezila's rebellion. The priest is eager to betray the High Priestess and leads Syke! to a ceiling-to-wall pennant lined with tassles. He yanks on the fabric and the obsidian floor turns gelatinous beneath them and swallows them whole. They're dumped in a cellar beneath the main worship room. The obsidian above has already hardened to its natural consistency. The priest leads Syke through a series of tunnels until they reach a grating (used for draining blood) beneath a private room. Gevurah's voice can be heard interrogating the servant in drow ("Tell me where the crown is!" would be the translation, if Sykule speaks drow). A whiplash cracks, then several sibilant hisses rise in a crescendo. Blood splatters across the grating and drips down on Syke and the priest's heads. The priest, believing Syke to be a drow, signs in the infrared hand-language of the drow, "After the rituals she picks out unsuspecting drow from the crowd to interrogate them for her own agenda. At first it was the rebellion, now it's this crown. I don't know what the crown is."

Syke! followed the priest through the temple, still not sure if he could fully trust the drow. When they fell through the floor, he was sure for a second he had fallen into a trap, but the priest standing right beside him dismissed such possibility. He was glad his guess was right, the priest would be an ally against House D'Artes after all. The illusionist was aware of the drows' infrared vision, thus summoning a light source in the pitch-black room would blow his cover catastrophically. Fortunately, for him, light-manipulation was his specialty and he had prepared for such. He insidiously cast a spell to concentrate the tiny amount of light in the room into his eyes allowing him to see in the dark. Syke! reached the grating after walking in silence for some minutes, although it appeared to be hours later. First the smell reached him, then, the sounds. He couldn't see what was happening upwards, but it was clearly an interrogation or torture - Maybe both - In the short amount of time he had to prepare for this task, he learned what he could of Drow language, mostly spoken. - He would give others the excuse of being raised far from Trist'oth, so some would forgive his lack of local accent and manners - But he could clearly figure out threats and "Tell me!" amidst the words spoken, and there was one word being constantly repeated ("Crown") that he could not recognize, but he did his best effort to memorize it. The priest gestured something to him, though he only knew the meaning of a few of those. "Ritual; Pick up; Drow; For her; I don't know.". Syke! bluffed, and made one of the few gestures he knew of: "Understood."

The priest, not wanting to risk discovery, bows to Syke! and leaves him to his devious machinations. On the grating above, the interrogated priestess's body (let's call her Morgana) falls hard against the grating. Morgana lets out a shriek of pain, then begins to chant an incantation. Her voice is siphoned by some unseen magic (Gevurah's). Robbedof her voice, Morgana then tries to cast a spell through fumbling hand gestures. Gevurah crushes the priestess's panicked fingers beneath her heel, grinding the brones with a sickening crunch against the grating. The High Priestess spills tar from a thin vial onto the priestess's head as she whispers an incantation. Morgana's body rots and melts until it is slick as oil. The body-sludge seeps through the grating onto Sykule's head from above. Gevurah doesn't even bother to wait until the spell is complete. The First Daughter storms out of the interrogation room, presumably to exit the temple above. In the main altar room she gestures and the sentries in the shadows are drawn to her like magnets. The D'Artes guards leave with their charge.The entourage head for the heavily guarded and enchanted D'Artes estate. Gevurah is let in through the front gates. Magic can be seen shimmering whenever the double-breasted, iron-wrought gates are open or closed.

Syke! flinches when something, or someone, collides with the grating. He holds his breath, listening to morgana's desperate thrashing, which suddenly turns into flailing as some kind hot ooze starts dripping from the grating onto Syke!'s robes and hood. He moves away from the vile substance, leaning against the wall. Footsteps can be heard and, after a while, the whole room is completely silent. The boy waits for a moment, just to be sure, he had to act very quickly before someone else showed up. He approaches the grating and forces it upwards. (and if he can) With some effort, he puts the grating's cover aside, and takes a quick look around his surroundings, before raising his head through the hole and looking around the room. Syke! cringes and covers his mouth and nose when he sees the source of the sludge, Morgana's half-melt corpse. He tries to spot anything left on her, or her clothing, that could give away who or what kind of drow Morgana was or if there was anything left at all on her.

Syke! would find an insignia among the sludge pile that was once Morgana. Whether he is able to identify it now, or later through research, at some point he will discover that it is the symbol of House Orbb Qual'Valsharess, the Fourth House and a member of the Drow Council. A little more research would reveal that their long-time matron, Obleven, was killed in the second most recent massacre at Trist'oth Arena (though massacres are a dime a dozen in this city). Conventional research would yield no more valuable information, but a sleuth conducting an investigation, now of the type that requires palms to be greased with gold and secret dead-drop locations in the tradition of excellent spycraft, would reveal that Matron Obleven famously wore a single band, plain iron crown. But all of that discovery may come later. For now, Syke! has the insignia which he is free to pocket and carry with him. In House D'Artes, Gevurah dismisses her guard and disappears down shadowy corridors. She paces through a few rooms, gathers vials and reagents into her bottomless satchel, changes into riding attire, and leaves the estate through a hidden side exit. An enchanted piwafwi disguises her as a shade in motion, though trained illusionists have a greater chance of detecting her shadowy veil for what it is. Furthermore, Sykule's research on Gevurah would have revealed she mounts regularly a giant spider, but today she saddles astride a giant, dark gray lizard. The lizard climbs up a cavern wall and scuttles towards the south-western quadrant of the city. She takes the long way around the Trist'oth chamber, for moving through the streets and crowds increases her chances of discovery.

Syke! was able to salvage some kind of insignia, from the pile of sludge. The tiny crest of one of the houses, though he wasn't sure which one it would be. He shoved the insignia inside a hidden pocket on his robe and crawled back into the hole, taking a mournful glance at what remained of Morgana before closing the grating. Maybe he'd never get used to the brutal murders that happened constantly in the city of drows, or at least he hoped so. His robes were a mess of blood and fluids, but he quickly cast a spell to hide the stains, he'd get rid of them later. The (Actually-not-a-)drow ran through the tunnels, hoping to catch Gevurah before she went too far, and eventually found his way back to the Temple. He greeted a few familiar faces on the crowd before excusing himself. The D'Artes convoy could be seen far ahead, heading for the estate. Syke! follows the guards until they reach the front doors and Gevurah is let inside. Of course, there was no way he could infiltrate the estate, so he heads south towards Trist'oth Tavern. He gives a quick nod to the bartender as he goes in. Syke! had rented a simple room upstairs (gold first, no questions asked, typical drow) with a bed, a small cupboard and a bloodstained rug. He changes his dirty robes into more comfortable clothing, and notices his own heavy-breathing due to the magical strain he's been through. -I can't rest yet. Soon.- he thinks to himself. A pillow is then placed underneath the covers and a spell is placed upon it. An illusory image of himself, asleep, fades into existence on the bed. The boy closes his eyes and makes a circular gesture of with his hands, creating a distortion of light that turns himself invisible. He unlocks a small window and struggles through it, jumping downwards and landing in the back alleys. After sneaking past a drow being stabbed by a shadowy fellow he reaches his destination, a subtle set of stair carved upon a stalagmite. Climbing the stairs leads him to his hidden lookout, an elevated point three-quarters away from the D'Artes estate. From there he had a good view of the estate and it's surroundings, and it was from there that he tried to keep an eye into Gevurah's daily activities. Syke! dug between a set of rocks to find a small box, his little "essentials" stack. Inside there was a tiny flask with a tonic, a bag of tea-leaves mixed with concentrated rozata flower petals, an azure looking-glass and an enchanted teacup. He puts the teabag inside the cup, which was enchanted to simply produce tea without fire or water, and waits for a minute or two before dripping some of the tonic inside the tea once it's ready. The boy watches the estate from the edge of his lookout, drinking his hot revigorating tea, and occasionally looking through the looking-glass, until he saw something suspicious. The glass was enchanted to perceive most forms of light simultaneously, therefore any attempt to hide or create an illusion would generate a visible distortion through the looking-glass, like waves in the water as a fish moves underneath; The stronger the spell, the harder it would be to track the source, but the distortion was usually much larger. (And knowing Gevurah, she would use a VERY powerful one) Thus, an enormous distortion suddenly appears, moving very unusually, away from the estate and towards south-west. Syke! wasn't sure if he should try to follow the source, it might not be Gevurah herself, but one of her associates. Nevertheless, it's still an good chance for him to learn about any side-activities house D'Artes has, and he decides to follow it in his dragon form, flying through Trist'oth while trying to track the source. Sykule's feathered wings made his flight almost silent and his sly build allowed him to sneak fairly well, but he cast a spell of invisibility on himself and concentrated to hide his magical signature (It might fool someone from a distance, but any decent mage would detect Syk's magic if he/she tried to), just in case, before he took wing.

The Underdark

Gevurah dips into a hole in the road headed towards the black gates that lead to the dead caves. She arrives at a fork in the tunnels: Dead Caves to the right, Drow Embassy in Craughmoyle to the left. This tunnel connecting Craughmoyle to Trist'oth is faintly lit by faire fire to assist non-drow visitors to the city. The tunnel that leads to the dead caves is not lit at all. She pauses to assess if she is being tailed. Paranoia begets survival in the underdark, especially for a D'Artes blood member. She didn't bother with searching for spies in Trist'oth, because, for one, she is guaranteed to find not one, but many spies in the city. Secondly, the bedlam of movement, magic, noise, and commerce camouflages those spies well. In the tunnel, the lone brave spy is all but naked against the stone. She pulls from her satchel a small glass-and-leather case in a figure eight. She opens the case to reveal contacts fashioned from the cornea of laurel bats from the Nameless Dessert. As if Gevurah's own power weren't enough, the cache of magical doo-hickies afforded to her by the D'Artes wealth further complicates Sykule's mission. There is no way Mcracken is paying him enough. Ask for triple. The High Priestess places the contacts directly over her own glowing red eyes then blinks several times to wet them. She snaps her fingers several times and watches as the audio waves ripple outwards from her fingers. The ripples, to her eyes, look like millions of grains of powdery sand. The curved sand-lines bounce against stone and return to her in expected ways, except for one ripple that bounce's off of Sykule's invisible form. Gevurah's arm snaps forward in an undulating motion from shoulder to wrist, unfurling like a coiled whip, until her palm opens last. A fireball shoots out of her hand, aimed at the place where the sand-ripples bounced off something unseen. Her pyromancy skills are fledgling, but hot enough to burn. And should someone be invisible there, hopefully the fireball disrupts the invisibility spell as well (though it may not). Seeing as how Gevurah wishes to do two things, confirm someone is there and kill that person immediately (it really doesn't matter who they are), the offensive fireball hopefully kills two birds with one spell.

Sykule tracked his target to a passage that leads to the Dead Caves. He entered the decrepit tunnel, walking at a steady pace while looking for what would be ahead. He didn't need his looking-glass to know that there was something big hidden under a stealth-spell further down in the tunnel. His suspicions were confirmed when the "shadow" stopped suddenly, which prompted the boy to stop and hug one of the walls instinctively. For a few moments, there is only silence; Then, a snapping sound echoes through the tunnel, and another, and another. To Sykule, it sounded like fingers snapping, but it didn't make any sense. A spark materialized into existence far away in the dark tunnel, moving at great speed. Well, the good news is that he was now sure he was following Gevurah herself; The bad news is that there was a massive ball of fire flying towards him. The boy had seen men being burned to a crisp by pyromancy magic before, and knew what would happen if he was hit directly by it. He could only think of one way out of it, to give Gevurah exactly what she wanted. The fireball hit the spy, exploding into a crimson-gold inferno and covering the tunnel with smaller flames. The sound of the blast was soon followed by the desperate screams of the spy, whose magic chanting faded away into screeches and yelling. He emerged from the flames, both flesh and clothes on fire and flailing his arms in vain. The nauseating smell of charred meat filled the tunnel. Soon, his screams turned into choking, and the drow spy fell face-first into the ground, still burning. Of course, this wasn't the real spy, but an illusion Sykule created. He hoped to trick Gevurah into believing that she killed the spy. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to dodge the fireball in time and his left arm was somewhat burned by the flames, he would need to get it treated as soon as possible. Syke! was laying down, playing dead after his act.

As a High Priestess to the God of Death, it's hard to feign true death before her. The shadow she wears like a mantle undulates along the cavern wall as she rides back to the fallen illusion. She whispers a spell to detect magic, and sees the fallen Syke! for what it is, but the spell does not reveal the clever illusionist himself. Where could he be? She sniffs the air. Something charred. Flesh, cloth. (His arm.) She snaps her fingers again to watch the sound waves ripples in grains of sand. It's darker in this part of the tunnel, and the ripples are not infrared. She struggles to discern exactly where her pursuer is. Her sense of smell, though keen, only guides her attention in an obtuse direction. Still, it's enough to kill. Sound, however, would be a better way to target him. Looking in his general direction she asks, still hidden in her shadow, "What house do you serve? I'll pay you double to betray them."

Sykule stood in the darkness, grinding his teeth nervously, waiting to see if his trick worked. The mysterious snapping sound began once again -Curses, is she using sound to detect me?- He knew he was exposed when Gevurah spoke to him from beneath her veil of shadows. The fake spy faded away, along with the embers, leaving the tunnel in deep darkness. For a moment he considered trying to convince her into thinking he had defected so he could follow her around. But someone like Gevurah? He knew all the priestess could offer him was a painful death. The boy let his energy flow through his good arm onto the palm of his hand, and focused into a powerful spell as he walked a few steps towards the shadow. Once he was close enough he spoke to her in drow, calmly. "Heh, sorry. I'm not a very good spy." He waited for a quarter of a second, to make sure Gevurah would be looking directly at him, before triggering his spell. A fiery explosion of light erupted from his hand, like a tiny bright sun, filling the tunnel with radiant light. Sykule, of course, was covering his face from the flash, but to anyone looking at the explosion would be painfully blinded by the light for a long time. He used that opportunity to dart away from Gevurah and escape. He had been discovered, indeed, but the city was filled with spies and Gevurah still didn't know who he was. And now he had a chance to learn more, first, who was the woman she killed, and what did Gev want with her, and secondly, what would the high priestess be doing, all alone, in the Dead Caves.

As soon as Sykule speaks, Gevurah's hand cups the air to summon a dark ball of energy. But the illusionist takes the initiative! His spell erupts brilliantly before hers can even take flight. She squeals in pain as the light pierces her drow vision like daggers through the pupils to the brain. The lizard mount runs, for Gevurah instintively knows not to be a sitting underduck, but she is certainly in too much pain to control her mind and counterattack quickly. Sykule escapes, the lucky dragon. Asking Trist'oth's shadows, through whispers spilled over palmed gold, will yield the following information: the dead priestess is Morgana [details included in a post above]. From this information, Sykule can infer motive. If he asks after Matron Obleven's iron crown, he may discover it is rumored to be The Crown of the Shade, one artifact from a set of five. As far as what Gevurah is after in the dead caves, no one seems to have an answer. Though one informant shares the well known fact that House D'Artes steals corpses from the mindflayer's arena in the Dead Caves. In the days following the attack in the tunnel, Gevurah's movements are predictable and boring. She visits the temple, the Trist'oth Arena, and the Second House led by Patron Lanlan. Sykule will discover there are rumors the first two houses are in cohoots, though spies from the Second House report the two speak in a magically silenced room. Gevurah and Lanlan's plans are unclear, though one spy claims Lanlan was seen in the dead caves with Gevurah once, but that spy lost track of them shortly after they entered a well known cavern used to store corpses. From there, they seemingly disappeared. On the 4th day, Gevurah leaves the estate once more in the veil of a shadow, astride a lizard, and alone. She takes the same route to the dead caves.

Syke! spent the next few days alternating between spying the D'Artes estate and going around the city, meeting spy after spy, and doing research on his own. It wasn't long before he learned about Morgana's identity, and the rumors about the Crown of the shade. The Order of the Shade wasn't an unfamiliar name, he had heard of all the chaos brought upon Xalious and Frostmaw due to it's revival. Unfortunately, no one seemed to know what Gevurah could be doing in the dead caves, except for the fact that she had visited a certain room used to store corpses. Syke! still had to find out what was inside the caves, and this time he had the advantage of knowing what path Gevurah would take. He managed to find a certain merchant on the outskirts of Trist'oth (after almost being mugged by a gang of local drows) who sold eccentric ingredients and gizmos. From the merchant, he bought three mushrooms and a small vial filled with a faint green liquid. The mushrooms were of a special species, they constantly released their spores around, which are nigh invisible, unless it's illuminated by a certain ultra-violet light. The spores tend to stick to whatever passes by, falling off gradually for a couple of hours, allowing the mushroom to spread, but also leaving a track behind. By the second day, while the high priestess was at her temple, Syke! visited the tunnel to the dead caves, until the place of his last encounter with Gevurah. His left arm ached. The burnt skin was covered in bandages and he couldn't use it well, but he did his best to conceal it. He grabbed one of the mushrooms from his bag and placed it on one of the corners. He then took the vial and spilled a drop of the liquid onto the mushroom, causing it to root itself safely. The liquid was a simple alchemical fertilizer, it would allow the mushroom to survive for a few days in the unforgiving atmosphere of the Dead Caves. The boy then proceeded through the tunnel,heading to the rumored corpse storing cave. Once there, he inspected the room, but wasn't able to find anything out of the ordinary, and planted another mushroom at the entrance, just in case. He then returned to his regular schedule, spending most of his time at his watchpoint, and sometimes attending to the temple. By the fourth day after their encounter, Sykule saw the same semblance leave the D'Artes estate. He decided to follow it, again, but this time from a distance. He waited for some minutes before following her through the tunnels.

The Dead Caves

Gevurah once again wears the sand bat corneas over her own eyes. At the intersetion where she last caught Sykule she snaps her finger. This time, surely, Sykules takes cover behind a rocky outcropping. The sound-wave ripples bounce off the stone as expected. They also bounce off the invisible mushroom, but the fungus is so small she assumes it's nothing more than a pebble in the dark. The shadowy veil slithers over the cavern wall, past the black gates, into the dead caves, and past the corpse-storing cavern. It would seem that particular intelligence was either erroneous, or the high priestess has multiple motives for visiting the dead caves. Moving east, she reaches a tunnel lit by torches not of drow make--nor do they look like dwarven or gnomish craft. The tunnel opens significantly to accomodate creatures larger than drow, dwarf, duerger, gnome, fermin, or any other intellgient species of the deep. Moving east across a series of tunnels and chambers, Gevurah's movements become skittish. Whenever other shadows flicker across the eerie enchanted light, Gevurah stills like a moth evading bats. Her stillness is camouflage. Only when the shadows stop their shuffling does Gevurah move once more. If Skyule is brave enough to look ahead and see what causes these shadows, he'll find towering creatures with the head of squids and bodies of tall men (most over six feet, but not over 7). In the second chamber the drow turns north and enters a room that smells of blood and rot. A dozen humanoids (not the mind flayers, but humans, elves, drow, bugbears, goblins, trolls, etc.) are shackled to walls. The unlucky thirteenth is strapped to a stone slab. The drow continues past the shackled unfortunate to a door. Beyond the door is a gallery of even more humanoids, all barely alive. Some are kept in spicey-smelling vats, some piled into cages, some hung over slow-burning embers, while a few juicy prizes such as giants and ogres are kept alone in solitary cells. Gevurah moves into one such cell. The door is made of stone with a wrought-iron grating embedded in a window. Looking through the grating reveals the the cell is empty. The grating's hole is large enough for Gevurah to slip her hand through. She grabs the emptiness, bunches it in her fist, then pulls an until-now unseen fabric through the grating. Sykule would be able to see the black, glittery fabric briefly before Gevurah hides it under her shadowy enchantment. She dismounts the lizard, which is now visible to the naked eye once she leaves it. The shadow-cloak remains on her body. She opens the door with some effort, for it is heavy and she is not physically very strong. Inside, shackled to the wall, is an elf.

By the time Gevurah reached the intersection, Sykule was still far behind, waiting patiently for the snapping sounds to cease. He didn't need to rush this time, as all he had to do was follow the track Gevurah would leave behind her. The illusionist leaves his safe spot after about a minute and walks cautiously until he reached the place where he planted the mushroom. There, he uses a spell to radiate a specific ultraviolet light, causing the spores to shiny like thousands of tiny blue stars. There were multiple trails, most leading to Craughmoyle, but the most recent track led straight through the black gates and into the dead caves. Sykule knew of the dangers that lurked within, from that point onward he'd have to be mindful not only of Gevurah, but the creatures of the dead caves. On top of his invisibility and stealth spells, and the one that allowed him to see the spores, he needed to hide the presence of his mind from the mind flayers that inhabited the caves. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, becoming slower and slower, then he cast a spell, one that he had practiced for a bit before visiting the caves and used last time when he visited the corpse-storing cove. The spell would slightly numb his thoughts, which made him feel a bit drowsy, and to anyone else with psionic abilities, it would simply seem like the presence of a small animal. Sykule moved fast, dashing by the dark corridor without making a sound, focused on the task of following the trail. Oddly, as he went on, the track seems to be leading past the corpse-storing room, to the east, into a lit tunnel. The weight of the spells concealing his presence were starting to tire him, but he decided to keep moving on. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the shifting shadows of the mind flayers nearby, though he dared not to look at them as he darted through the corridors. The trail led into a room filled with captive humanoids, and inside that room was the very shadow he pursued, Gevurah, standing in front of one of the empty cells. The illusionist moved cautiously to the other side of the room, what he assumed to be Gevurah's back, and watched as she pulled some kind of fabric from the grating, which immediately disappeared. A few seconds later, a giant lizard emerged from the shadows. -The lizard is saddled... it's probably her mount- The silence on the room was then broken by the low clicking sound of the cell door being slowly opened, revealing an elf inside the cage.

Liana doesn't sit. Nor does she stand. The method of shackling allows no comfortable position for a body to seek its rest, except by the method she uses now. She hangs limply in the chains, her back pressed against the dank wall, arms high with manacled wrists above her head, legs lax. The relief is only temporary, for her hands will become blue in just moments of this rest. Despite the dampness of the cell, one might notice the strange phenomenon that no moss grows anywhere within the chamber. In fact, nothing does. Liana has long ago sucked the life out of the various fauna that once graced the caves. The archdruid looks like the merest shadow of her old self. Sunken cheeks and a rake thin physique show all too clearly the lack of good food she has been given. Clothing, long since turned to rags, no longer clings to her, but where this would once have troubled her sense of honour, now she barely notices it, even when the removal of the shadow cloak heralds the arrival of someone else. Bruises cover her from head to foot, but they appear old. They gave up beating her many weeks ago now in favour of more sophisticated tortures. As the cell door swings open, it begins despite her greatest efforts to stop it. It began with plants. A rose here, a fern there, brought to her and left in the same room. A druid's strength is found in living things, but it is in the taking of excess life energy from those things that she finds her true power. Never taking enough to kill or even to weaken, the master druid skims only the excess that any living thing can afford to give, and no more. But when there is only one living thing with life energy that you can feel, when the dark spawn have warded the cell against the ingress of any other life energy, and you are beaten and nearly dead and you know if you just take a little you may survive another day. Well, in such a situation, anyone may have been tempted. And Liana was. But once started, the difficulty in stopping was immense. She resisted for all of a week with the rose. Then they stopped feeding her and increased her beatings. She drained it in an effort to survive. Next they brought a rat, and from there, the size grew and grew. The torture was exquisite, all the more so because, as it is a druid's wont to do, she could not help but offer comfort to the animals as she touched minds with them. Many would come to be near her, would seek her out to take of that comfort even as she took the last of their life from them. The mis-placed trust was simply another aspect, but an excrutiating one. So, when that door opens, Liana doesn't lift her head. nor does she open her eyes. Immediately, a barrage of life energy assalts her, eminating from the other miserable wretches outside. She does her best to block it, to focus only on the demon spawn who came to heighten her discomfort, to push her one step closer to the edge of insanity, which drew ever closer. This life energy was so strong, so vibrant. Despite her renewed vow that she would not draw from any other living thing, she begins to weedle it from the being, taking it in despite the displeasure at the touch of a Drow. She felt less guilty about this. Feeding from a torturer surely did not hold the same moral penance? But, why was she even thinking this! All life was sacred, no matter the taint! An errant breeze causes a tickle at her stomach. Vlash Kurai, she thinks, the memory restoring her to herself somewhat. Only the tree knows why they let her keep it, the seemingly innocuous twist of vines around her waist. Perhaps it was because they appeared dead, perhaps because they had no intrinsic value to the Drow, but whatever the reason, she was pathetically grateful. She continues to hang, awaiting her fait.

Gevurah came down here for one purpose: to draw the elf's blood. By now she tires of torturing Liana, it's an old game. But several drow and Vakmatharas rituals call for elf's blood, and the more powerful, ancient, and magical the elf, the better. Few elves are more gifted that this druid, and so Liana provides Gevurah with a steady supply of high arcane elf vitae. When one considers the fact that Liana is difficult to imprison and keep secret, no longer fun to torture, and a liability if she ever escapes, one must wonder why the priestess keeps Liana alive at all. But that calculus has been made in the noble drowess's political mind, and the druid is lucky that Gevurah deemed her heartbeat, however faint, to be of some value. All business, Gevurah pulls a needle and vial from her satchel and draws blood from the druid's arm, then leaves. Liana isn't even afforded the kindness of an unkind word, anything to remind her that she is alive. The cruelest thing Gevurah could do is show the elf indifference, and that's exactly what Liana gets. The cell door clicks shut, the enchanted fabric is swapped out for a fresh illusionary sheet (as the half-life on the old fabric's enchantment is decaying), and Gevurah leaves the way she came.