RP:Of Pigeons and Lingerie

Part of the Venturil's Bane Arc

Sage Forest, Kelay

*The Sage Forest Bell lets out a great, untuneful volley of peals*

Deer bolted, rabbits ran, clouds of birds exploded from the trees. The claps of the mighty bell were meant to rouse Sage to war. Right now, they were providing Maladroit with far less options for the remainder of its evening meal. The entree's remains were scattered below the tower - a dozen horribly desiccated pigeon-husks - and thus it may safely be presumed that the search for similar repast was what had inflicted this outrage of sound upon the forest. The familiar was hanging upside-down by toes and fingers from the bell's silvery lip, its pseudopods grasping into the bowl in frustration for the rest of the pigeons which had, sensibly, fled.

A clatter of angry elves can be heard, mustering in the distance.

Hanan 's old gray warhorse--the loss of some obscure knight to gambling debt awhile back, thoroughly unsuited to the sailor but beloved anyway--thundered beneath her down the path. She had no idea what the old bell meant but she knew it must mean something, damn it, and she knew where it was. Horse and rider broke into the clearing, then she rose to her feet in the stirrups, peered--then slumped. "Ruttin' hell." Nothing. Well, mustering elves, but they looked equally annoyed. "Damn you, spooky."

Valentin had been out visiting farmers in Kelay, prospecting for additional suppliers. Business had been good for him lately, as most of the competition in Cenril had had their shops burnt out or outright robbed in the recent troubles. Valentin, whose stock was maintained through delicate necromantic sorceries and an almost impregnable cold room, had come out ahead in the fierce competition amongst butchers. He'd been chatting to one stout-jawed member of the breed when the damn bell had started up and the man dashed into his cellar screaming "The Preklek are coming, the Preklek are coming!" When Valentin found himself locked out of the negotiations in such atrocious fashion he made the typical response: he swore profusely at the bell, and sought to find what had caused his mornings efforts to go to waste, and made his way towards the only bell he'd ever noticed in the area.

Kamakio wanted to run at the hearing of the bell. With all the horrible, horrible things that happen in Kelay, whatever made them ring the bell had to be bad...but she couldn't keep away. Curiosity was a powerful emotion. And she knew a little more then she did a little while ago. There was that, too. But she put her full stealthy skills to the test, tapping her past. Mostly this involved using her small size and sticking to bushes and the like.

Maladroit dangled for a bit longer, its faceless aspect necessarily betraying neither disappointment nor surprise. It swivelled that blank mien about on its rubbery neck as though to peer at the steadily gathering crowd below the bell-tower, shedding several more pigeon-husks as it did so. The abomination retracted its midriff-borne pseudopods, then, and plopped to the forest floor, completing a cat-like turnabout midair.

Elven stragglers, hidden out for the sake of a revolution that was becoming more a wish than a plan, gaped and showed it their spears and drawn bows.

Maladroit wibbled its manyjointed fingers at them.

Hanan turned her head at the approach of Valentin, who she didn't know from Adam (or whoever else hung out in Kelay). And remained in her saddle. "Poor bastards wanna fight that thing?" Said aloud but not really to anyone. She sank back down in the saddle, shifted her weight, and checked the rapier at her side. "Don't know which side t'pick. One's some kinda hellbeast, the other's elves."

Valentin was good at muttering, and he'd kept up a constant stream of unaimed but virulent grumbling to punctuate each determined tromp of his booted feet. The butcher was in a foul mood, and what he saw didn't help things. "Oh fer feck's sake, th'blimmin' Mistress' beastie has returned? Don' tell me tha'means the hellbitch has returned to make m'life miserable again. Of all the..." At about this point in his tirade he recognises the presence of others, and touches the brim of his bowler hat in greeting to Hanan "Greetin's mam'selle. Me, I'm all for hopin' th'damn books fill th'blighter with arrows. Not that it'll happen like that, worse luck. Damn critter is more resilient than a roach." Valentin calls out to the gaunt "Oi, geddown from there, y'damn troublemaker! I lost meself a damn good deal on account o'yer clangorin'!" Kamakio, her skills serving her well, remained unnoticed by the butcher.

Hanan blinked. Mam'selle? Mistress? "Don't tell me you're one of Tene's." She smirked, turned to actually look at him--tipping his bowler--and snickered outright. "Figures the bitch'd have a couple bitches of her own left." She didn't notice Kamakio amidst the bustle on the other side of the clearing. "And it's Captain to you." She tipped two fingers to her temple, a sort-of-salute. "Don't talk to it. It doesn't make any sense."

Kamakio was horrified. What was that thing? Why did it have to kill all those poor pigeons? The poor girl nearly flipped her lid then and there. A dread feeling in the pit of her stomach was there and growing. Paws cover her face, nearly knocking the ill fitting pointed hat she'd found right off. But still, she was there and watching. Could she help? ...should she even? Maybe...it was friendly? Those pigeons disagree with that notion, but a lass could hope.

Valentin took a closer look at the woman on her high horse and commented impassively "Seem's the mistress ain't th'only cranky bitch around neither." There was a distinct lack of honorifics. Hell, he called Tenebrae a madwoman to her face. One of her associates wasn't going to get special treatment from him. "I reckon th'books are fecked, right proper." They'd sell well, after proper preparation, that was for sure. He had clientele just waitin' to hear from him on that account. The ears were a delicacy in certain parts.

Hanan shrugged, grinning while the elves waved their weapons around and Maladroit... existed. She could see Kamaiko now, who got a brief look and a quirked brow before she returned her attention to the other vampire. "I'm not the one here callin her 'mistress.' She give you a collar or is that only for Special Bedtimes?" She peered back at the weird creature. "What books?"

Maladroit continued to make no sense, no sound, no sign of recognising any of their presences - except the crafty fermin, who was the subject of brief and eyeless scrutiny, the kind that makes you shiver at the back of your neck and turn to find beady eyes upon you. Except Maladroit stared at her front, with no such sensory capacity. This perusal was (thankfully) interrupted by the first nervously-nocked arrow let loose by one of those not-very-confidently advancing elves, sworn to their sacred duty, all as one shaking in their supple boots.

Maladroit was struck squarely in the chest. It responded by loping forward, its wings snapping out to form a kind of walled embrace with which it enclosed the elf in a frightening trice. The portion of the ranger not covered by wings turned an ashy hue as those wormlike pseudopods once more extended, stealing not only fluids from the victim but all colour as well. A sudden pall fell over the forest. The gaunt, resembling a winged pincushion, dropped its meal, a horrible husk whose dry and open mouth still screamed, silently. Plunged into this abrupt darkness, the gathered party would find themselves looking about at a world that was not their own. Things had changed. Hanan's horse was a manta-like beast with rubbery skin and terrible hooked extrusions. Valentin was accompanied by massive, vile wormlike creatures that grovelled about his feet. Kamakio sat upon a throne made of dark steel twisted by fell magics into a semblance of a vast, bestial skull, while a host of black and ghastly things of ill-defined but vaguely rattish form cringed and swore fealty at her feet. Oddness abounded. Elves screamed and ran.

Hanan 's horse, as stated, was a manta-like beast with rubbery skin and terrible hooked extrusions. And Hanan was still on it. Shocked and perched, leaning back a bit, hands scrambling behind her on the rubbery surface before she regained a steady balance and then swore. "Stormy--" Yes, that was the horse's name. Lita mocked her for it. The rest was obscenities through gritted teeth and lengthened, unhidden fangs. She snapped her head to the others. Oh great, Worms. Screaming elves. Some kind of fancy chair.

Valentin had been in the middle of saying to Hanan "'S a title she earned. Respect, even for a nutter like her. You, luv, are as yet a doxy onna horse claimin' titles, an we o'Cenril don' have time for your kind an' your fancy airs." when the darkness glooped over them, almost viscous in its unearthliness. It was almost like that time the Haruspex had pulled them through time and space to save on travel time, the mad bastard. Gone now were the forests of beings caught up on his butchers hooks - now he was surrounded by gravewyrms, and of such pedigree as to give him ideas. Horrible and serviceable ideas. At least th'damn harpy woman wasn't on a fancy prancing pony any more. Kamakio, made visible by the strange sorcery, was given some examination. A fermin. They'd been runnin' rampant o'late. And the elves. Oh yes, even the drained one would make some good jerky for those with refined tastes and busy lives.

Kamakio couldn't stifle a cry as her world explodes with darkness. Her glasses were a special little thing, not just letting her actually see right and proper. Little runes buried in the rims could show her magic. Used to be that they highlighted stuff worth taking, and hexes or the like sitting on things that protect them, but they had other uses. It was turned against her as there was magic augmenting the whole world around her, looked like. A step backwards, she was tripping over some root. Falling over, oversized hat tumbling from her head. This is what she paid for her curiosity, it seems. But, she had one more skill she could tap, as soon as she calmed down. Namely, running. It wasn't glorious, but it once again beat the alternative. Just as soon as she could see right clearly.

Maladroit exuded the illusion for a brief time further, and the vampires present might take note of the lofty, jagged spires reaching like dark fingers from the base of the barren earth, the mad creatures akin to the thing 'Stormy' now resembled swooping like insanely large bats from the turrets. Upon their back rode .. vampires. But of a kind not seen in this dimension, all finely dressed but mutated of feature, some beautifully so, some more aligned with the product of madness. War between them raged, bodies dropped from the blood-lit dimness of the inky sky. Meanwhile, Maladroit loped toward the bespectacled fermin, a rubbery hand groping out to grasp her by the wrist. Dessert? It seemed not, for if that hold succeeded, the little ratwoman would be gifted something. Nothing fancy. Just a fresh, dead pigeon plucked from out the gaunt’s midriff, where it had been stored for later. The pedigree gravewyrms cringed, the altered horse shivered. On a black tide of inky shadow rode a small, pale woman in the distance, armoured grandly for war, green eyes flashing as she shrieked commands to her minions. Quite bitchily, as it happened..

Hanan didn't know what to do, exactly, about those things--people--swooping down and the spires in the distance, about the other people taken here she didn't know, about Maladroit, who she only knew as the Weird Thing Affiliated With Tene That Arrived In Her Backyard One Day. But she did feel her horse shiver. She exhaled angrily through her nose, leaned down and rubbed the bit of its back that she presumed had once been Stormy's neck. Her teeth were still gritted. "Take us back." She sighted that woman in the distance alright; fear was turning quickly to plain anger. "Put. Us. Back."

Valentin shuddered too, aye. Because he seemed to recognise the way that figure was giving out commands - and not many sociopathic women were that petite, greeneyed, or downright vitriolic. "You bloody tentaclefaced bastard..." the vampire muttered. "An' here I was happily thinkin' the crazed wench was dead. Jus' my blimmin' luck, innit." It'd be more time spent away from his work, diggin' up things from deep holes, gettin' attacked by the things what they'd dug up, an' damn rituals gone terribly askew. Oh yes, he knew what this meant. The damn gaunt was tryin' t'bring her back, he'd bet a string of his best sausages on it. "Don' you dare, y'sod! It's been right peaceful o'late. Let her order that shadowy lot around, innit." Avian invasions of his home city were distinctively peaceful by comparison to a day's work in the Necromancer's guild under its brilliantly mad mistress. But his eyes drew back to the Gravewyrms, the jagged mountains, and the possibilities such a remote location would afford his more private, guild-related studies. The wyrms, they were the key. To hell with skeletal reanimation. He had better, more ingenious ideas, if he could just get his head around the bloody sigils and cack-handed processes and necromantic rituals invented by what were a bunch of lunatics in Valentin's (largely correct) opinion.

Kamakio looked sick. Felt sick. Maladroit was too fast, she didn't even have time to cry out. So sure of death when her wrist was grabbed she only closed her eyes as the end came...to have her paw get wet? One eye gets opened, the rest of her body cringing. "Yech!" The pigeon was promptly dropped. Was that...a gift? She didn't know. She just wanted Maladroit to go away. Uncomfortably close, and here she was without anything but a spellbook she didn't really have time to read. Maybe...give it something back? She didn't have much. These clothes were her only ones she had. Grabbing the only other article of clothing she had, a pair of stockings, she hesitantly offers it to the entirely unsettling gaunt. They were taken from an inattentive merchant. One day, she hoped to own a dress. A really pretty one. With bows. One she didn't have to steal, and could wear to a ball or something. The stockings were supposed to be part of it, but hey, if giving them up meant Mala went away, it was worth it.

As though it actually cared to soothe Hanan's jangling nerves, the otherworldly illusion woven by the once-goblin began to bleed out, gradually replaced by a brighter, more familiar reality. The horse was once more.. a horse. Of course. The sky lost its battles, the spires shrank to trees. The wyrms collapsed into the earth. And Maladroit was holding .. a stocking. The abomination ruffled its wings, the arrows pincushioning it clacking together faintly as it released the little fermin in order to hold its prize with both ghastly hands, in the manner of a man gifted something precious. Maladroit gave many gifts, but did not on the whole receive them, and the action was regarded as the rarity it was. The forest filled with light and birdsong - notably lacking the coo of pigeons - and the bloodless minion of Tenebrae bled not. Business as usual, it seemed, had returned to the Sage Forest.

Hanan didn't realize she'd been panting lightly until the illusion--it was an illusion?---faded and Stormy was Stormy again and she felt like throwing her arms around the big old horse's neck. She didn't. "Don't ruttin' do that again, you hear me? Or I swear I'll..." What? Could it even die? "You'll regret it." She looked back to Valentin, rolled her shoulders, then looked away. "Looks like your 'mistress' is havin' a hell of a vacation. She send this thing here to bother us then? It's..." She glanced at the stockings. She'd been too busy freaking out to really pay much attention to the fermin having given them but she put two and two together. "...gods, it's some kinda... pervert. I need to get out of here."

Valentin growled as reality made its way back into the fray. "Right, that tears it. I've work to be doing. I can't be lettin' that pigeongrubbing bastard bring her back. It ain't bloody happening." All other business forgotten for now, the Scleratus of the Necromancers Guild turned from the scene, and began a determined tromp towards Cenril, mentally sorting through the patterns of sigils he had witnessed in the presence of the Magister Letum Leifong's summonings. The butcher had not a lot of time it seemed, and several places to visit. At least his transport wasn't too far away.

Valentin growls back at Hanan "She can bloody well stay on vacation 'til the endtimes, dammit."

Kamakio , meanwhile, was edging away niiiiice and slowly. The gift of the silken stockings had seemingly placated the beast. Now she was going to try to run away now. Somewhere far, far away, so she can cry her eyes out.

Hanan watched Valentin tromp away. "I wouldn't ruttin' mind 'er back if she wasn't bein' such a damn jerk about it. If she's sendin' this thing to take us... places..." Hanan in truth had no damn idea what was going on.

Valentin grumbles loudly, still put out by the entire turn of events "Tell ya what, luv. When I send that blighted beast back to her side once an' for all, you can go with, yeah? I'll save you a VIP spot, an' all."

Maladroit offered Kamakio a parting wibble of fingers, from which she might be left with an odd but distinct feeling of promise.. or threat, as it may be.. that this would not be last she'd see of the gaunt.. The abomination watched Valentin go, then, and nodded its bullet-shaped, blank head in the manner of one well satisfied. Still dangling that stocking from the crook of one rubbery arm, Maladroit's attention would stay on Hanan for whatever time the vampire would remain in ... well, not sight. Situ.

Kamakio grabs her hat, stuffs it into her mouth, dropping onto all fours. After which, she runs as fast as she can, absconding and thanking whatever gods are watching that she's still alive and unharmed.

Hanan growled, a bit, and rudely said nothing to Kamakio as she left, because damn it the sailor was rude like that, and instead sat there in the saddle staring Maladroit down. Only she had no idea where to stare. Somewhere on it's blank face-space there were probably eyes, she reasoned. She stared at where she imagined she'd be. "I don't know what you are, but I know you work for her. So tell her this: whatever she's tellin' you to do, stop. Because I find that dead girl in the forest and now you're here in the same damn forest showin' me visions of her and I can't help but put two and two together. If she's the one killin' 'em then I'll reach down into ruttin' Hades itself and kill 'er over again, freaky flyin' soldiers or not, you hear me?"

Valentin sods off in an unhurried fashion, mind ticking over as only a master tradesman's does when faced with a massive work order and a ridiculous deadline. His continual muttered tirade seemed a homage to every disgruntled worker in the history of blue collars.

Maladroit could not have replied, even if it was inclined to, so no correction of Hanan's assumption was forthcoming. Instead, the gaunt, resembling a bony, winged porcupine, stowed its stocking in its stomach-pouch and loped off into the trees, leaving the pirate with a last, brief glimpse of something dark and terrible looming overhead. Then the forest was absent of that, and Tenebrae's familiar both.