RP:Forging the Basilisk Blade

Part of the Agitation Arc

Summary: Trajek approaches his master in the mountains of Xalious, bearing a gift. After a brief, hushed exchange, the pair return to House Dragana in Vailkrin, where together, they forge the Basilisk Blade.

The Xalious Mountains

It was a strange thing seeing a young elf walking the ways of the northern highlands. They were rife with bandits, lowlifes, and thieves. In every nook and cranny there were beasts with claws, talons, and insatiable hungers. Yet here was a young elven woman walking with her head bowed, her eyes open yet seeing nothing, her neck jerking every now and ten by the rope that was around it. Thin and almost indistinguishable, it could only be seen when the light hit it just right or it was pulled taut, the end disappearing into the rocks. It was strange. It was odd. It was...fishing. Any necromancer worth their salt would feel the undeath that simmered behind a few large rocks, and Larewen would certainly be able to tell whose rope was still hanging around Trajek's throat. The ghoul waited in silent stone obscurity, tugging on the strand that guided the bait in an unending pace.

Larewen could not see the elven girl. She could, however, see the silhouette of her own magic, illuminated by her augmented vision. Her nose twitched beneath the veil of her hat as she made her way southward, those heightened senses recognizing the stench of death even before the necromantic magic was felt. A burst of dark energy bereaved itself of the necromancer, fully illuminating her sight for the briefest of moments in shades of verdance whilst nostrils flared. The second inhale caught the whiff of the young maiden, and a hunger stirred within the leech's belly. "I sense you," was all the elf offered in greeting to the most recent of the creatures she had raised.

Trajek needn't hear his Mistress' voice to know who she was. Her powers exuded from her in waves with each bringing thoughts of obedience to his mind and a need to bend to his knee. In the company of colleagues one need not hide themselves, and the ghoul pushed and pulled himself over his rock-face shield. The reason for his hiding would be seen more through her eyes attuned to spellwork than his physical form---his spirit, or what little he had left in him, the emptiness in his spectral form were it should have been stored, was weakened. Its edges were undefined, some buckled inward while others were thinned nearly to fracture. He had used what he had no control over, and it had weakened him dearly. "Mistress," the word crept from his lips and hissed from between the fingers that held his wounded throat closed. "Slave. Chattel." The nigh invisible strand was tugged, and the elf maiden was pulled to her knees. "For...you."

Larewen studied her spellwork quietly as he appeared before her and presented the elven woman. It took self control to keep from leaping upon the girl and feasting - she'd be better served as a bloodbag, for the timebeing. Behind that veil, her tongue made a brief appearance as it ran over her lips, and then her attention was distracted by her spellwork. Any signs of gratitude that might have danced briefly upon her lips vanished as the necromancer took note of Trajek's weakening spirit, of what made her sentient servants more than the mindless undead that simply feasted upon flesh. She raised her left hand to tug the torn, bloodstained glove from her right, and as he stood before her, the injured appendage reached out to touch his chest with a sort of sad fondness that was uncustomary. "It would seem I failed you," she said quietly, and in those syllables was a bitter disappointment, directed toward herself no doubt. A tendril of unholy magic extended from her touch, seeking to probe the damage wrought upon his tethered soul.

Trajek stood stock still when his Mistress touched his chest, the unholy magic a not unwelcomed thing. She would see within flashes what had so damaged his soul; he wielded death as she did, as spellwork devoid of a body, a blackness that was beyond his capabilities to use. His command of undeath worked through corpses, and the spellwork devoid of the protective meat shield had contorted his spirit and burned his soul. In the flashes she would see his foe, a mage of some standing within the mage guild, and what the basilisk he had taken from Aiden through dubious means. The last flash was quick, as though it sliced through her mind like a...blade. "Eat...mage," He played doctored with himself giving his Mistress what he would need to recover fully his damaged soul.

Larewen blinked a time or two as the visions found their place within her mind, and for a moment she was stunned by how vividly she could see them. It would be a lie to say there was no pride to be found in his command of death, to accompany the grief of his injuries. The dark magic would remain within him, continuing to probe around to garner the full extent of the damage whilst her fingers curled inward slightly. Aiden. Her lips pressed into a thin line, and she inhaled coldly. She'd seen the mage less than twenty-four hours prior, within the tavern. Well, not seen so much as felt. His magic, anyway. Bitterness darkened her features. "I must be diplomatic, dearest one," the elf said quietly, her haunting voice hardly above a whisper. "And he ranks higher than I within the Guild. We will find a way to fix you, and this time I will make my spell stronger." For the moment, the elven maiden was little more than decoration.

Though he was dead and his life as a soldier and leader of giants was buried with his humanity, the ghoul knew the need for diplomacy. He dipped his head in agreement; his Mistress would have to play her own game. "Secrecy." He looked at the well traveled road, at the high mountains that echoed voices for quite some time. They would need to keep their contact as covert as possible to avoid any diplomatic faux pas. "Vailkrin." Of the few places which could be used in secret, the city with hundreds of his kind walking the streets was the safest.

Larewen dipped her head to Trajek and finally withdrew hand and magic. "House Dragana is within the Abyssal Forest. Bring the girl there, and we shall talk a bit more openly," the elf said, her voice hushed. There were many topics that needed to be discussed, particularly in regards to Trajek's well-being and her own ambitions. "I will wait for you there."

House Dragana

If there was a home for the Ghoul, it was under a mound of dirt. If there was a place where he could bring his slaves to murder and consume, it was Vailkrin. But if there was a place for him to scheme, for him to feed the egos of others while stoking the fires for war and other heinous things, it was House Dragana. Very rarely did he walk through the Mansion's doors, but each time he was moved by a purpose---and the purpose this time was the thrashing, screaming, terrified slave that fought vainly against every tug on the chain that had already bloodied her neck. Alliances needed to be cemented, plans needed to be planned, and above all a Mistress was deserving her gift.

Trajek would not have to go far into the depths of House Dragana to find its elder, for the woman lay upon one of the green sofas. She was clad in only a simple, snug evening gown of the same color of the furniture. In one hand, she held a bottle of alcohol that, judging by its putrid smell, was exceptionally strong. There was no hat or veil to obscure her pale features, and those dark, brown tresses were allowed to fall in their natural waves across her face. She sat up when the doors opened to bid the ghoul and his slave entrance, and the screaming of the girl drew Larewen into a sitting position whilst sightless eyes fixed upon the pair as best they could. "How pathetic," she hissed, to the elven slave. "You're going to die, no matter how much screaming or crying you do. Accept it, and be honored of your purpose."

The slave had been dragged through a dark city, through a dark woods, through all manner of beings that wanted to kill her, eat her, or drain her of her blood. When she heard another voice, she ran to it, not caring who it was or what had been said. The ghoul could see the irony in a slave girl running to her death; he let the chain slip from his gore stained hand. "Please. Please! I beg you! Help me. Help me!" The slave pleaded on her knees, her fear and her tears keeping her eyes clouded and her sight opaque. Trembling hands reached for the Vampiress while the deep thuds of Trajek's boots brought the fiend next to the living offering. "Ally...provides..." His grip on his own throat tightened, though his voice was little better for it. "Authority...over living...and dead...over all...you choose. Ally gives...unending masses...to feed."

Larewen arched a dark brow upwards in amusement as the girl lowered herself before her. Quietly, the necromancer reached a pale, ice-cold hand out to touch the girl's cheek in a manner that was almost motherly. A soft, deceptively warm smile caressed the pale tiers of her lips as fingertips felt along the girl's face to find her chin. The curl of a single finger would draw the girl's face upward just as a small burst of magic faintly illuminated it for Larewen's augmented vision. Her other and lowered the bottle of alcohol carefully to the smooth, dark glass of the obsidian floor. "Do you wish to be free of your suffering, girl?" she asked, the faintest tease of hope offered in the elf's silvery voice. A glance was cast upward in Trajek's direction, those dark eyes missing his as she expressed her appreciation in a fanged grin. "Would you like me to mend your throat, dear heart?"

The girl was quick to grab Larewen's wrist, her grip tight and trembling with terror. She was offered help! The first kindness she had found since Trajek tore her and her sister from their homes in the Sage Forest. She heaved a sigh of relief, and her jaw loosened before speech. The ghoul silenced her, his gore covered hand grabbing her hair and wrenching her head back hard enough for her to bite her tongue. Her blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth, its path tracing along the raised, heaving lines of veins in her neck. "Throat is shame." Trajek denied himself a healed throat as he offered one to be defiled by the vampiress. "Clean. Pure. Untouched."

Larewen opened her mouth to further entice the girl with alluded hope at freedom at last, but Trajek's sudden jerking of her head and the subsequent draw of blood distracted the necromancer. It was such a sweet, coppery smell that suddenly flooded the room, leaving the elf's mouth watering in anticipation, much as it once had in life before a grand meal. For a moment, the elf's eyes closed and she inhaled, an expression of near ecstasy taking control of her pale features. Her tongue ran over the tips of her fangs, pressing against them briefly before she let out an unnecessary exhale of breath. "Come child," the elf said quietly to the slave, extending her arms in expectancy of an embrace. "I will protect you from this world. Come." One hand lowered to pat the couch beside her. To Trajek, she said quietly, "Such a lovely one."

Trajek released his grip on the slave, and the girl was quick to scramble forward towards the necromancer. She was within the Vampiress' cold embrace, her arms wrapped around the woman, her cheek and her tears warming the necromancer's cool shoulder. "Please. Please. Save me. I don't want to die. I don't want to die!" The slave bawled loudly, though her pleas were muffled by Larewen's neck. What came out of the ghoul's wounded neck was a hissing, gurgling wheeze...as close as a laugh as the fiend could make. He could see his Mistress' mood was to play with her food; she was a cat toying with a mouse, giving the poor creature the illusion that death would not come if it ran from paw to paw. The couch exhaled a disgruntled huff when the Ghoul sat. It would be a conversation over a drink, it would seem. "What. Do. You. Desire. Most?...It. Will. Provide."

Larewen enclosed the elven girl in her arms, dark eyes fixed blindly upon the ghoul. He alone would see the way in which her lips curled upward. The necromancer's nostrils flared, inhaling the scent of the poor girl, savoring her fear and her hope. She dipped her head downward, as if to offer the girl more warmth in that embrace. Cold lips touched her throat briefly. To Trajek, she said, "Power, knowledge, and control. The same I have always desired." And then, her fangs flashed into sight briefly before she closed them on the slave's throat, piercing the soft flesh.

Trajek hungered as Larewen hungered, and what she wanted was but a the slightest different than what he so craved; he sough power, knowledge, and control, but his meal needed to be dead, to have the last bit of the person's essence dislodged from his or her body, before he could dine. he cooed softly, if cooing was what that sound was supposed to be, as he ran his stained hand across the wide-eyed girl's brow, as he dirtied the bangs he pushed back with the remnant of the slave's sister's viscera. "Not desires..." He said as he leaned forward, as he watched those wide elven eyes start to dim. "Goals. Ends. What. Desire?" The slave would have cried out. She would have screamed. She would have beat her fists against the Vampiress' chest. But something sapped her, the pleasure of her neck pierced and her blood drained, the carnal pleasure that was the lead that filled her limbs and had her lips smacking like a fishing trying to breath on land. The slave knew death was near, and her mind begged for every last drop of it to be pulled from her dying body.

Larewen did not answer Trajek for a few long moments as she drained the girl. She enjoyed ever moment of her feast, and as the girl struggled, Larewen only drew her tighter against her own body. Her blood was sweeter than any that she'd had in some time, undoubtedly courtesy of her purity. It wasn't until the girl finally grew limp that the necromancer would draw her mouth away from the girl's throat. Blood stained her lips, her chin, and droplets fell to the rise of her chest, soon making their way to the green cloth of he dress. "I want Vailkrin. I want the dead to be seen as they should be: a force to be reckoned with, and a powerful ally or terrifying enemy. We are more than just corpses."

Trajek was quick to take the corpse from Larewen, though he did it with some respect. She had played her game and got what she wanted; it dripped from her mouth, darkening and defiling the beautiful emerald robe. She was sated, and now it was his turn. "Vailkrin. Yours." His words were barely audible, both hands being used to lay the body face down on the stone floor. "Now...Mine." As the elder necromancer weaved necromantic energies, as she summoned forth spells that arced, maimed, destroyed, and raised, so, too, did Trajek do with the body. It gave way to his beckoning---bones ripped through fabric, called to action by the ghoulish hands that laid upon the dead. Muscles unwound, tendons snapped themselves, and fleshed peeled itself back. His gore-stained hands reached into the canyon carved from the base of the corpse's neck to her hips and pulled free her still warm, still bloody spine. The body gave way to a second tool; black bile filled the macabre ravine. It surged over the still suppurating edges, covering both the pale body and the stone it laid upon an unnatural black. What he pulled from the blackened corpse, what he summoned that used up what necromantic energies the body still had, was another rotting carcass. The learned would know what it was: a basilisk. He turned back to his Mistress, the spine in one hand and the foul smelling rotted thing in the other. Instructions came from gray lips that formed the silent words, 'Empower me. Channel your power into me. Channel your power into what I create."

Larewen listened to the music created by Trajek's features, lamenting that she could not see the carnage laid out before her. The elf leaned back upon the sofa as he fed, and then, when the sound changed, when magic began to form, her interest was once more piqued and the necromancer leaned forward again. The stench of the basilisk bore down on her, and while it might have turned weaker stomachs, to the elf it was a wonderful smell of death. A dark brow arched curiously, but no vocalizations were made. The thrum of magic came to life within House Dragana as its mistress called not only upon what was within her, but what had been weaved into her home: the very heartbeat of the House. Verdant light illuminated her augmented vision, outlining corpse and ghoul alike as an unnatural cadence left her throat in the faintest of whispers. Magic was drawn from the manse and into the necromancer, then expelled in a steady wave of verdant tendrils toward the ghoul, seeking to encompass his form. The magic weaved into his very being, revitalizing what bits of his being may have already faded since she'd raised him. With the rush of unholiness came the distinct feeling of control: he was fueled by her steady flow of magic, and she was allowing him to, in essence, wield her might through his own hands.

Trajek was seduced from his current project for the briefest of moments when he felt the unholy necromantic energies flow into him. Her power, the mansion's power, strength filled his body, and the connection they had made would give the elder vampiress a window into his mind. Chaos. Undeath. Hunger. These were things she already knew the Ghoul thought of constantly. There was loyalty there to two creatures, as firm as the stone beneath his boots: Larewen, or how the Ghoul saw Larewen within his mind, a cold, calculating, beautiful creature whose eyes were the most striking feature. And the second, the thing that stood beside her, was a mass of lighter black. A Shade. The ghoul's eyes focused back on the task in his hands, and with the unholy energies nigh erupting from his hands, he smashed the basilisk and spine into one. An explosion. A concussive force. Both seen and unseen, felt and unfelt. It set the stone floor trembling and all loose items into a tempest. The basilisk and the spine, both fought for dominance over the other and neither would yield. But the verdant energies burned hotter; the necromancy welded the two into one. The spine hardened, the vertebrae ossified. Nerve fibers wove through basilisk scales and bound them. The inner edge of the spine sharpened as the coccyx molded itself into a hilt. And all but the inner organs of the basilisk fused with the unnaturally hardened bone. The slop of the viscera hitting the floor could not overshadow the pleasurable noises that gurgled from Trajek's open throat. "Complete."

Larewen watched through that augmented sight as the blade was formed, though she only saw variant shades of green and black. She felt the flow of her magic, the thrum of her power as he wielded it and welded it, and then it was done. Larewen saw the darkness of the viscera as it slid free and splattered against the floor and she found herself longing for true sight once more. The finality of Trajek's gurgled word was met with a lessening of magic as the expulsion came to a close and, leaning back once more, the elf lifted her bloodied chin in a faint nod. Fatigue overcame her, for the amount of magic she'd poured into him had been grand, and so she found herself thirsting once more. "It is lovely, Trajek," she said, her voice a haunting, awed melody. Weapons were not the necromancer's forte, and she admired his handiwork. "I expect this ally will be pleased?"

Trajek nearly fell when the necromancer's power was cut off. He, too, was fatigued, though what he craved was cooling by his feet. "Vailkrin. Is. Yours." He twisted the blade and held out his hand as though the pledge should have ended with 'by my sword or my hand.' He did not need rest nor did he require to take a seat, but he stumbled back to his cushion. As the slave girl's blood had ruined Larewen's emerald clothing, her gore now spoiled the couch.