RP:Feel The Chill of Despair

Summary: Josleen receives her punishment for trying to rid herself of her black rose.

Kyl'oriel's House, Xalious Village

Josleen was there during the recent and traumatizing attack on Hildegarde’s camp in Xalious. The camp has since moved, and Josleen has every intention to follow in a few days when she is well enough to be of use to anyone. Most of the medical staff followed the Silver, as is expected, and any who wanted to remain to care for Josleen were sent away to be more useful to someone in worse conditions. And so the nurse-bard is left to nurse herself, a challenge given the fact her injury is spinal. She kept a few necessary poultices. Having just bathed she now stands with her back to a full length mirror in a patient’s gone unfastened from the hips and up. In the mirror she assesses the yellow, green, and purple bruising that’s flowered over her porcelain flesh like watercolor. Gently she dabs and smooths poultices over the bruises, wincing from both the touch and the twist in her spine as she applies the salves. There’s an entire swath of mottled skin at the center of her back she simply cannot reach, but don’t worry, Josleen has an ingenious solution for that--when she gets to it, in like half an hour. The worst part of this injury is the slowing of everything. Each morning she hides Revan’s black rose in a cabinet, by now having learned it is impossible to destroy, though she did try. She trashed it, tore it, burned it, buried it, and even asked a paladin of Arkhen to break the curse. It worked, for a while, but some time after the rose returned, and shortly after that the attack happened, and now the rose seems like the least of her problems. Aside from Revan’s initial attack and the rose’s haunting, nothing else bad has come from it and plenty of terror has come from other sources. Still, the rose does not like to be hidden. She hides it, and it stays hidden for the day then, suddenly, the following day, there it is! Josleen’s fingers find it first when they reach to dip into the salve and instead collide with the black rose. “Aah!” she shrieks, grabs the rose, then tosses it across the room with too much force. She cries out a second time, this time in pain as the forceful movement throttles her back.

Revan's appearance is preceded by a light breeze that blows softly through the small, brightly colored bedroom Josleen inhabits, the cool air brushing against her bare spotted skin while she groans in pain from her over reaction against the flower. While she tries to recover, a bird of some sort can be heard outside, though it isn't a song or chirp that fills the void but instead a sharp crow like cry that would draw her attention to the ajar window that is quickly building up frost on the pane despite the warm summer weather. In this moment the rest of the world seems to cease to exist, all sound coming to an abrupt halt as the chilled breeze turns to a frigid cold that bites at her chapping skin. The icy frost making it's way to her mirror, distorting the bordering outlines and causing the glass to begin fogging though clear over her shoulder in the reflection stands a hooded man with glowing red eyes and cold dead flesh clutching a single black rose in his hands.

Josleen startles at the crow and looks to the frosted window. She doesn’t know what this is, but she knows it isn’t good or safe. She limps as quickly as she can, still wincing, to her coat rack to fetch her coat, and just as she reaches for it, Revan appears. She screams shrill and high. His apparition gets a cocktail of adrenaline and endorphins pumping. She’s running— sure, with a limping gait, but although it hurts she powers through the pain. She runs out of her bedroom, into the hallway, and towards the living room which Hildegarde just the day before accidentally destroyed, in part. She runs over fallen books and papers towards the front door. Her weakened state means she isn’t very fast. “Help! Help!” she screams, but this is a rural town. The nearest neighbor is acres away.

Revan watches with unamused eyes as the handicapped woman flees, the bedroom door slamming against the wall with a thud during her escape. His body falls into the floor disappearing into a spiraling black abyss that leaves a trail of frost as it travels into the hallway after her. Just before she can reach the front door Revan emerges like a geyser with a ear shattering shriek to stun her then flings his left arm towards the door with an extended palm sending a blast of ice to the hinges freezing them solid and locking her inside with him, ready to repeat the process on any other exit she may move for. Kneeling slowly before her while taking care to keep the rose out of harms way, Revan's palm is pressed against the floorboard and the glacial spell pours out in an area of effect that aims to reach her bare feet and encase them leaving her rooted and vulnerable to his plans.

Josleen grabs a standing lamp near the door and feebly brings it crashing down on Revan as she turns tail to run for the back exit. On some level she understands she is trapped, but her survivor’s instinct is far too powerful to see to reason. If there is any hope of escape, even just an imagination of hope, she’ll strive for it--albeit screaming and calling for help all the way. She barely makes it to the hallway when Revan’s slick of ice catches up to her and grabs her feet. Her forward momentum sends her topping forward and she bends at the hips forward, her knees saved from crashing on the ground by the very ice that imprisons her. The quick, snapping curve of her spine hurts so badly her shout is just a gasp at first, a tunneling in her vision and sharp pain at the back of the jaws. It’s a dizzying pain, and the silent gasps and winces give way soon to screams both fearful and wounded. She turns back to see the stalking predator. “What do you want? A paladin of Arkhen is expected any minute!” She bluffs. Technically the paladin of Arkhen left yesterday, and it’s unclear if he’ll be visiting again soon. “He’ll end you! I swear it! Any second he’ll be breaking down that door!”

Revan jerks his head down and to the right as the lamp collides with his skull with a heavy 'thunk', a gritting of rotten yellow teeth and growl of aggravation given before he rises up and advances around the corner to find a successfully disabled bard crying out nonsense in a futile attempt to escape. Revan hovers over his prey, the damage from the lamp is a bit more obvious up close as a dent in his head easily spotted from the cloth hood being stuck in the apparent hole as maggots spill out from beneath the dark fabric and onto Josleen's exposed back. Kneeling once against beside his victim, Revan eyes the woman closely and upon noticing a smudge of something on her left cheek sticks his fissured and blistered tongue to lick his rotten pale beige thumb and presses it against her skin hard to wipe away the imperfection. The following seconds feel like hours as dread feels the room and the shimmering eyes of the undead man remain unblinking in their stare down of the wounded bard, when the silence is finally broken the voice that speaks is a distorted and broken one, "When a crime is committed, the guilty must face retribution. Those that attempt to escape their retribution often come to find the consequences far more severe than the initial punishment." His eyes shift between her own as a crooked smile fills in the features of the undead who's throat carries a bulging, pulsating open wound.

Josleen shudders and gags as the maggots fall on her, and his saliva-moist thumb presses against her cheek. Nausea churns her stomach and makes her salivate. He’s reduced her to animal, an instinct for survival frustrated and protested with an involuntary whine, a whimper, a cry. Turns flow down her cheeks in fat streaks. “I’ve committed no crime. You’ve got the wrong girl. Please, just let me be.” Then suddenly, changing tact she works her shoulders painfully to expose more of her back, “Can’t you see I’ve been punished enough? Please, let me go. I’ll do anything you want.” Another pause, another change in tact, “I won’t tell anyone about this. It can end here. I’ve learned my lesson. You’re right. You’re right. I’m selfish, I’m vain.”

Revan cackles a heinous laugh at the woman's attempt to claim herself clean of her crimes though the undead isn't fooled for a second, the beast leaning in closer until their noses are touching and with a gurgling pop in his speech he proclaims proudly, "Not. Even. Close." The glowing red of his eyes begins to spiral round and round to cause a nauseating feeling that disorientates the woman further his voice deep inside the back of her mind as the hypnotism takes place, "For your insolence, you shall feel the chill of despair. Every waking moment you will suffer the indecency you project onto those around you. Josleen of Xalious, embrace the consequence for your sins." After the final word is spoken the man kneeled before her is gone though the chilling bite against her skin remains, powerful enough to leave her shivering and with chattering teeth. To the touch of others, Josleen's skin would be warm and normal but inside she would feel as if her bare body were submerged in the arctic. A nuisance for sure though the full effects of the curse wouldn't be found until she goes to have a look around the house and the outside world, from this point forward no matter where she goes, Josleen would find morbid scenes depicted before her very eyes, tortured men hanging by their necks from every tree branch, screaming children being mutilated by something unseen on every corner and frozen corpses laying in her own bed next to her, closing her eyes wouldn't allow for an escape as visions of face staring up to her from the darkness cry out for help with voices in her head. Laying on the floor just before her is the black rose, a single petal wilting to fall to the floor. Worry not vein bard of Xalious for past this moment, you will never be alone again.

Josleen hyperventilates. Panic sets in. She knows this is a curse — it must be— but it is so convincing and terrifying all same. Curses, like diseases, are effective because even if you know what they are that doesn’t make the symptoms any less horrible. She grabs a framed painting off the wall, a small watercolor, and uses the corner to chip herself free of the ice. As soon as she can escape, she grabs her coat and leaves for The Destrier in search of the nearest armored hero.