RP:Patricide in the House Stavret

From HollowWiki

Background

Joliette Thorne is enlisted for a dire ritual enacted in the Underdark, which secures Kuzial's place as Patron of the House Stavret.




On a Street, in Vailkrin


The lamps on Hemlock Way shed their glow almost redundantly this day, the moons two bright slivers in a clear sky, and their silvery glow illuminated the street well enough to render those lamps dull sulphurous eyes glaring into a greater light. Jolie stood in a little used side-road, though was visible from the main street. Her arms were folded across her chest and her head was tilted at a curious angle, as though she was trying to look at something sideways. Which in itself was odd, as there was nothing at all ahead of her except a patch of flattened earth. Abruptly, her head straightened, and then tilted the opposite way, for no reason that would be at all apparent.


Kuzial was stalking the dark streets of Vailkrin, searching for the Lady Darkness he remembers so well from the disgusting mess that is Kelay Tavern. He feels almost at home in this city, as far as any drow can feel at home upon the cursed surface, but at least here there was the darkness that so suited his cruel nature. So like a wraith he moves in silence through the streets, illuminated by the twin moons, his movements as always languid; that unconsciously fluid grace all swordsman have. And then he spies her, standing there seemingly in silent contemplation. So he does something rare for a dark elf. He clears his throat to gather attention, before speaking in his naturally lyrical voice, "Lady Darkness..." His hands rest comfortably across the hilts of his two daggers - a position that seems like it is relaxed, though the tension in his neck shows he is like a coiled snake; ready to strike any who are foolish enough to get near.


Jolie’s own smaller fingers were quick to clasp on a dagger-hilt, coincidentally enough tipped with a poison of desert origin, unknown to the drow. And quite purposely so. This, before he’d finished clearing his throat, so that by the time Kuzial addressed her by the title bestowed, Joliette had already turned to face him. Her eyes narrowed to peridot slits for scant seconds it took for his particular features to be recalled. Who. What. Where… “Kuzial…” she exhaled, and though her fingers relaxed upon the knife’s slim handle, they did not leave it. He was from the Underdark. Surely he’d understand. “… it’s been quite some time since we last spoke. How fare you?”


Kuzial offers the lady a slight bow without taking his hands from the hilts of his sister daggers. His crimson gaze never leaves her as he ignores the question about how he has been, "It has been a while, lady." He grimaces, though whether it is a genuine expression or offered for show is unknown. He doesn't step closer to her to speak - she has the look about her, a look he usually sees on drow matrons, and rare respect is offered. "I have something I require done. Something I was told you could do, but no-one else would be strong enough. It involves this." He pulls from a chain that also holds his house insignia a small shimmering stone that a well-versed, as Tene surely is, necromancer would recognize as an empty soul stone. He figures this is explanation enough.


It was. She nodded, subtly. “The street is no place for such.. a discussion, I’m sure you agree. I have a place where we might do so at our leisure.” The final word was intoned in such a way as to suggest that it would also offer security from eavesdropping. “It’s not far.” She gestured toward the west, and would keep astride – neither would wish to be at the others’ back, and this was taken and hopefully received as no insult. “I’m glad to see you, really,” she went on, as they walked, the cemetery gates soon in view. “I have some.. business.. in your own territory, and I don’t at all wish to be a bother to your people, as far as my overt and obviously foreign presence is concerned. I was hoping to find a suitable escort.”


Kuzial walked beside Jolie seeming quite relaxed, though his eyes took in every shadow they passed, though his crimson gaze often returned to her. They kept astride of each other, though there was a space between them born of mutual respect... or at least... mutual understanding that either would kill the other one if there was even a hint of profit to be made. As they enter the twisted gates of the cemetery Kuzial makes a somewhat light hearted comment, though there is no humor in his tone, "You who dances with death... lady necromancer..." It seems he knows her reputation well. "You would bring me here to a place of your greatest power..?" He stops before they can get too far into the cemetery, leaving him an easy way to escape. He does this without fear of insult - he is drow, she would understand. "That could work well." He replied to her statement of suitable escort. "The.. thing I require you to imprison lays within the confines of my," He emphasises the 'my' with a barely concealed joy, "house. I could bring him to the surface, but it would be at great cost. If you were to travel with me into my homeland..." He turns fully to her, "Under my protection." A wry grin, "We could finish my business and also your own. No harm will befall you while you walk with me." He ends there, not bothering to make any promises. Mutual profit, mutual gain, that was the language both understood.


Jolie’s lips had flickered into a tiny smirk as the dark-elf quite redundantly pointed out his disadvantage, and deigned not to reply to his question with anything other than a brief turning-away, leaving her potentially open to sudden attack and thereby probably leaving Kuzial very aware that she was aware that he was aware of the risk he was accepting right now, and probably aware too of what her gesture – picking a ripe, gaudlily purple aconite bloom, which she’d hand to him when her gaze returned to his – was saying, exactly. All the correct protocols imparted thus, she listened to his ensuing words with great interest. “Ah,” she said, nodding. “That all seems in order, then. However, I am to be leaving on a brief journey next week, so I wonder… are you in a terrible hurry? I have a few days free of pressing concerns, as it happens.”


Hooded Cultist walks in from the north, "All hail the Lich Queen!"


Jolie offered the cultist a sharp look. "Piss off, you."


Kuzial understood the meaning behind her turning away from him for that short moment very well, and without taking his right hand from the hilt of his fine dagger, he takes the flower with his left. The deadly drow offers the lady an almost imperceptible nod of his head - a gesture most surface dwellers would both miss, and not understand, but one that sealed their pact without need of useless words. He then tucks the flower into a small pouch on his belt without taking his eyes from the powerful necromancer, before speaking again in his lyrical voice. "The sooner the better. Powerful is the drow I have dragged from grace, dangerous he is even in chains. Though not powerful enough!" There is cruel, sadistic joy in his words - the ironies of dark elf culture were always a source of amusement, and torture was something always worth appreciation. "I do not have weeks, lady darkness. If we could leave before your... journey, it would suit me well."


Kuzial killed the hooded cultist more ways than it knows how to die the moment it made its useless proclamation.


Jolie stared at the body. "They're hard to kill, you know. Being as most are already dead..." Her brow was puckered with a frown, though not all intended for the intruder. "We can leave tonight. That is, unless you intend to stand on the roof of my tavern and shout the plan, in case anybody missed hearing it.." That barb spoken, she soothed its sting with a smile. "I have several stops to make, in your lands. One of those is... possibly a tiny bit tricky." Meaning he ought to be as armed as a drow can possibly get. "Tell me where to meet you, and when, and we'll get the ball rolling, as it were."


Hooded Cultist walks away to the south.


Jolie nodded to the retreating corpse, and her brow uncreased, though she managed not to smirk.


Kuzial ignores the thorns in her words. Well named is lady Joliette, he thinks. But the opinions of surface dwellers, even powerful and potentially profitable ones, truly mean little to the callous patron of House Stavret. So he simply nods, "Where we will enter is not well known to most who live under the accursed sun. I will meet you there. You will not speak of it to anyone." He nods again, "Tricky is not an issue." He is heavily armed with his two daggers, a slender, curved sword with an ebon blade, his poisoned crossbow and a series of throwing daggers hidden about his finely clothed form, and all but his daggers are laced with vicious poisons. "And I am ready when you are." From the same pouch he deposited the flower into, he pulls forth a small sheet of parchment. Upon it is an elegantly drawn picture of Kelay village, and the surrounding Sage Forest. Where once there was a ranger's camp, now is a picture of a small skull. That is where they will enter. The delicate ironies of his race come out. There are safer ways to enter, but spitting into the eyes of the foolish elves is always a bonus.


Jolie's barely tangible lift of one dark eyebrow would inform the drow that she was quite impressed by his devious pre-arrangements. She folded the parchment carefully after a quick but thorough perusal of the map, and then tucked it into her cleavage with no sign at all of being self-conscious about employing it as a hiding place. "I’ll need to collect a few things. Shall we say - two hours from now?”


Kuzial spent a long moment staring at that cleavage with equal lack of shame. She was exotic, after all. As his gaze returns to her face he smiles a predatory smile, "Two hours. I will be there." Without need of goodbyes the dark elf turns and stalks away - within moments he has merged with the various shadows and is soon gone from the dark city, to await the necromancer's arrival and if he's lucky, find some elves to slowly kill...


Some Hours Later, at the Remnants of the Elves' Camp


Jolie wandered the forest trails to the designated meeting place, keeping out of obvious sight and armed with a bow in case stopped to question why she was stalking about in the shadows of trees carrying a large pack to which was tied an assortment of cutting implements, things which would not fit inside it. As she reached the spot she thought Kuzial had meant, the necromancer halted and leant against a tree trunk. No doubt he was already here somewhere. Those sneaky drow were pretty good at keeping out of sight, too…


Kuzial remains motionless as he watches Jolie's approach. Hidden amongst the shadows he admires her exotic form; wanting little more than to claim the dark lady for his own. But more than his own carnal desires, he wants his house returned to its rightful spot. He wants his father to suffer... He wants blood and suffering... A deep breath is taken in, perhaps betraying his position. Thoughts of vengeance were always an aphrodisiac to the powerful drow and once again he must quell them. When composed he steps from the shadows and speaks in hushed tones, "You were not followed?"


Jolie slid that same toxin-tipped throwing dagger she’d almost pulled on the drow earlier in the day back into its sheath, having drawn it at the sound of his inhalation. She’d be waiting for him to step from his hiding-place by the time he did so. “Yes,” she said, softly. “But not for very long.” Her eyes grazed over him, summarily, and then glanced about the forest, “Is there… some sort of tunnel here?”


Kuzial speaks in the same hushed tones, "Surface dwellers spend little time looking down, but we of the Underdark are always looking up." He makes no indication he noticed the dagger being drawn and returned as he leads the powerful necromancer to a tree that has seen better days. Once it stood high and proud, though now it is slowly wilting away as the corrupt energy of the Underdark leaks into its roots. He eyes her bag with a slight frown, but not bothering to ask about it he speaks instructions instead "Follow my steps close, Lady Darkness..." Using his innate power he casts a globe of darkness over the tree and steps into it. His whispered voice sounding from within. "Two steps only, then we descend."


Jolie had walked into worse darknesses before. She barely hesitated now, before following Kuzial’s instructions. One step, and all light was gone. Lycan eyes tried to adjust to the absolute gloom and failed. Two steps, and she could scent the perspiration on the back of his neck, the tang of excitement in it. The drow’s blood was up, and her own predatory nature responded as if to a call to the hunt, her inner beast lurching to its clawed feet, distending its nostrils to taste dank moss and old leaf litter in the air. “I can’t see,” it was barely a sound at all, “But I can follow your scent.”


Kuzial grins within the darkness, before speaking in a voice that struggles to even reach Joliette, "Then follow." On silent steps he begins to walk deeper into the cave. Though they pass through the orb of darkness, no light is at its end. Kuzial shifts his own gaze to the infrared spectrum and weaves the complex system of caves and tunnels; one wrong turn for anyone would lead to a painful death - the drow do not leave any passages unguarded. But Kuzial knows this way well, and it takes not long at all for them to reach an expansive cave that heralds the entrance to Trist'Oth. There he stops and picks up an ordinary looking rock, were one to be able to see it. It has been hollowed out, and within the Patron of House Stavret pulls forth a small necklace. "This marks as you a member of my house, and gifts you the power to view this world through a drow's eyes." It is the Stavret insignia, two spiders circling a blind drow female, which grants the power to see in the infrared spectrum amongst other things, "And this." He pulls out a shadowed hood, "Should provide enough protection until we are within the grounds of my house." He offers them both to Joliette.


Jolie first put on the insignia, peridot eyes blinking hard as the world became a tangle of dull red light. Then the hood, drawing it down over pale skin… She gave their surrounding quick perusal, and motioned for Kuzial to wait a moment. Her pack was placed quietly on the stony passage floor, and perhaps the drow would wince at the way her bones cracked, then, though the necromancer’s shape did not change significantly. He’d notice, though, when she lifted her face with teeth bared against the discomfort that the teeth themselves were longer, sharper, and if his sight could distinguish such a thing at all then he’d note too how her skin had grown inky, its melanosis a mark of the impending abyssal-black coat of fur that was forced from sprouting, with visible effort. There, not so terribly pale now, so she might even pass if that hood was kept low enough. Jolie took up her pack, and without another word, nor a sound save the soft snick of the deadly blades appended from her belt, these deftly slid into her sleeves, she stepped forward a single pace ahead of the drow. Because, after all, that was only proper down here. It would be obvious that Kuzial would need to find some method of guiding her that did not draw attention to the fact she had no clue in hades where they were going.


In the Streets of Trist'Oth


Kuzial didn't bother to control his features as his scarlet eyes narrowed in brief anger at the sounds of cracking bones. Though, due to his extensive preparations no one is close, he stills understands better than almost anyone the dangers that lurk these odious halls: Death is ever close in the Underdark, regardless of who you are. As she goes through her changes, the drow's eyes narrow further. He had done extensive research to find the dark necromancer, but nothing spoke of this. This was new, this was exciting, and though many would find her less attractive in her partially changed form, Kuzial found his attraction to the woman growing. But again he must suppress his desire to take her, and instead merely falls into step behind her. Though he is now Patron of House Stavret, very few outside his house knew of the change, and it must remain so until his plan can be completed. He speaks again in almost silent tones, aware that as they near the city proper many, many eyes would be on them, "I hope you hear as well as you smell. I will scuff my left foot if we need to turn that way, the right otherwise. Keep your head high, ignore everyone. And make sure that insignia is clearly shown." And so they walk through the city of Trist'Oth - a place few who do not dwell here have truly seen. Against Kuzial's wishes, occasionally Tiphareth has let surface dwellers see the grand arena, but little else is on display at such times...


Jolie had, as Kuzial would be unaware and would for now remain so, visited Trist’Oth many times in her centuries of life, some of those visits on business, some of that business even legitimate. But just to give the drow one more surprise, her ebon-skinned hands, tipped in sharp, curved nails, made the sign for understanding in the voiceless language of his own race, and she handed him her pack – no Lady of rank would be caught dead hauling baggage when there was a male to carry for her. Again her lips curved wickedly, before she swivelled on her heel and strode ahead, the hood tugged over tell-tale pale eyes so that only the inkiness of her lower face would be seen. Thus they began their journey through the winding paths that led through a series of wet-walled caves upon which glowed various fungi – the light almost too sharp for the necromancer’s magically-improved night vision – while Jolie kept a sharp ear out for that scuff of left or right boot that would tell her make a confident and decisive-looking turn in that direction. The insignia sat upon the juncture of her collarbones, and it was this which gained the stares of the first dark elves encountered, a pair of young females of lesser rank. Jolie squared her shoulders in a faint sign of disapproval for their blatant gazes, and they soon melted away to spread gossip as such young drow females do. If she was at all nervous the sineater did not show it, her steps a smooth, nearly gliding pace she’d learned upon her walks with Castellian long ago, as they entered a busier part of the underground city.


Kuzial narrows his eyes once again as her fingers flash through his race's silent hand code. Ignorant of her past dealings, he assumes Tiphareth had taught her. Tiphareth... the surface drow... leader of their city, but so often seen leaving its dark grounds to cavort with surface dwellers. How the young noble hated him. But he silently takes the bag and slings it over a wide shoulder. Like all of his house, he is not slim as most drow are. His arms are thick with corded muscle. House Stavret breeds very few wizards, few priestesses and no male clerics. Theirs is a house of warriors - rising to power within the city by their strength and a cruelty far greater than most drow. As they pass the two young females, Kuzial takes note of them with a short glance. They are not nobles, but commoners - granted freedom only by their status as clerics. Kuzial hates them, but as he must, he follows in silence through the tall stalactites that make up the businesses that foolish drow have set up. Many a crimson glowing eye stares at the two, but very few would stand in their path. The slaves that stalk the street on silent business move quickly from the noble drow and pretend-noble female. One bugbear, lugging a pack far larger than Kuzial's is slow to get out the way. And so the male drow reacts. He carefully places his own pack on the ground and leaps forwards. Uncaring of displaying his true martial prowess before Jolie, he fluidly pulls forth his ebon sabre in one hand, and a dagger in the other. His movements within the infrared spectrum would be little more than a blur of light as he spins through his flowing battle style, silencing the screams the bugbear started to make as it noticed its sealed fate with a dagger in the throat. Kuzial released it long enough to spin once on his heel, the sabre held horizontal as it separates head from neck at such an angle his dagger is sent flicking through the air. The drow grins at his handi-work and basks in the small gasps of pleasure various watching drow make, before he extend his left hand in a flash and snatches his falling dagger out of the air. When done, he turns to Jolie and bows with proper respect, before returning to the pack and slinging it over his shoulder. "We can continue... matron." The words are quiet, almost silent, but he has little doubt they were heard by others.


“If you are done with your theatrics,” she replied, her tone dry and flinty as the stone surrounding them, in a flawless mimic of a high noble accent, and in the dark elf’s own native tongue. Hardly having turned toward Kuzial at all, and displaying obvious – to a drow – symptoms of impatience, she stalked off as before, a few paces ahead. Once they were clear of the throng, to some degree, Jolie tilted her head very slightly to afford herself a better look at their surroundings. In typical fashion, the outer portion of the houses and shops would look far more severe than they did on the inside, she knew, where opulent luxury and delights for every sense, cruel and sensual alike, were maintained by those who could afford them - and imitated by those who could not. Behind them rose whispers and more silent conversations wondering at the severely-dressed female who wore no baubles nor any sign of wealth but for the symbol of her house – not a poor one, either, so many would assume her lack of decoration to be a new kind of supreme arrogance that in a week would be mimicked among the females of the lesser houses, much to the chagrin of their lovers and family members. Passing now, at the behest of those guiding scuffs of heel, she took in the unusual grandeur of one place of residence, assuming it to be some house of importance, before they trod onward to an area far more familiar to her than the innermost city. The arena wasn’t far, and she knew by their downward inclination that these passages would, at some point, take her closer to her own goal. Here, she would pause for a moment, placing her own body between the drow and any passing line of sight, her hands moving in subtle sigils that told Kuzial of her intended destination, once her business with him was concluded.


Kuzial snarled in impotent rage as they pass that mighty house. For it is House Orbb Quar'Valsharess, the house that Stavret intends to destroy. But he is not ready yet.. So he follows through the city, letting his mind flow through the knowledge he has gained of Lady Darkness. She knew more about his culture than he liked, though it made her useful.. but dangerous... He would find the source of her knowledge in time, he decides, but for now their own business is of greater importance. So he follows her through the busy streets until she stops and signals her own destination. He nods and replies in the same silent language of the drow - his fingers going slower than he would for a native drow due to her being less familiar with the glowing light of infrared vision, 'My house is close to there. Past the arena, into the first caves. Not far.' And so they walk past the arena, empty now of drow and surface dweller alike, and into the dark caves. Kuzial enters with a stoic look on his face, their beauty completely lost to the male. But they are in fact very beautiful, by any standards. Fangs drop from cavernous mouths, giving each open cave the sinister look of a lurking monster, ready to devour any who are foolish enough to enter its great maw. The natural fungus that grows on all caves causes the stalactites to darken in silhouette, and through the spectrum of lightless light that the two now see, each one is framed by twirling patterns of shimmering heat. Few beasts live this close to Trist'Oth, and those that do are deadly beyond the understanding of most who live under the sun. Animals that will remain motionless for years, waiting for someone to be foolish enough to walk close. Pernicious beasts that lower their temperature to become almost invisible against the dull colour of the stones and wait with uncanny patience for any who wander near. Few parties of young drow, still studying in the school for fighters, attempt to walk in silence throughout the area, guarding against attack, but when they notice a female of rank, and the large drow behind her, each one does its best to stay the hell away. Life is cheap in these caves, but Kuzial, by instinct alone, doesn't bother to warn Joliette Thorne. She would know, he thinks - she would sense the hidden menace of these caves. And if not, she would die, and Kuzial would laugh at her foolish demise. He has no patience for weakness... And so they walk through the darkness in oppressive silence - only the occasional scuff of a foot giving any indication that they are there, heading ever closer to the twisted gates that mark House Stavret. Gates that are just now visible...


Jolie noted that unsubtle snarl, her hooded gaze darting to ensure none were close enough to have seen it; all she needed now was some rival house’s goons to make a fuss over the slight… Thankfully, none were, and so she proceeded on their path until they came to that cavernous wonderland that would make her stop and stare, twirling slowly around on one heel to take in the various and sense-confounding sights and odors in these lower levels. She had never been deeper into the Underdark than those upper streets of Trist’Oth, and already the strangeness of these lower caves had her nape prickle a warning of perils surrounding. Oh yes, Jolie knew danger when she sensed it, an almost preternatural sense honed by her predilection for paranoid thought, as well as a killer’s natural caution toward the fact that there is always, always a bigger predator, lurking somewhere and ready to bring that most dangerous and unavoidable hunter, Death, lunging out of some dark recess or dropping from above. Too, her canine nose did not fail her and while the musk of the beasts here was unlike those of the surface creatures she knew, still they offered up their scents and she would make a markedly wide path around several niches or portions of jagged-toothed ceiling as much to avoid whatever loomed there as to make a point to her drow companion that she knew he’d failed to offer her warning and would do just fine without it, thanks all the same – and possibly, probably, give him a tiny heads-up that the favour might be returned in kind some day. Shivering, she would continue at Kuzial’s direction toward those gates, where a shift in the sound of his pace, a hitch in his breath, caused her to glance over her shoulder. Damn, he was big… “We are there?” she whispered, in the language of the accursed elves.



In the House Stavret


Kuzial makes quiet note of her caution around the perils of the Underdark's deathly array of creatures. He both hated and liked this woman of the surface - so like a drow in mentality she was, and with her exotic exterior she would attract many a dark elf, and probably leave their corpses in her wake, were the chance to arise. Just his type of woman. He nods his head in silent affirmation as he walks past her to stand for a brief moment at the gates of his house: Unlike most drow houses in the city of Trist'Oth, House Stavret is not beautiful to look upon, nor is it framed in the faerie fire so many use to proclaim the skill of their wizards. Its beauty and grace comes from its sense of lurking menace; the almost tangible essence of hidden malice that flows from the sharp spires of the stalagmites that've been moulded into the large halls of the drow's home. Many dark-elves move around the grounds, though few of them are visible to even Kuzial's keen gaze, enchanted as it is with the infrared spectrum. Glyphs glow all around, a visual reminder more than just physical warriors guard these dark halls. Kuzial makes a series of deft gestures with his hands, before leaning over to whisper to Jolie in the common tongue, in case anyone was close enough to hear. "None will stand in our path, but I request you act..." He was going to say humble, but doubts that is possible, "a little cowered if we encounter any of my brethren. Within these walls, I am lord. For intents and purposes, you are my latest." He struggles for the surface word to describe her... "Whore." Without waiting for reply he makes another series of gestures and the adamantite gates open, showing fully the slim path that leads to the mighty hall, where breaking the oppressive silence, screams can be heard faintly ringing out... the screams of the forsaken, the damned... the screams of former patron Vorx. That is their destination, and it is there Kuzial leads. His back is to her, but he fears nothing - he knows her sense of self preservation would stop any hidden blade ending his own life, as much as she probably would love to do so.


Jolie, who had a somewhat... perverted discernment toward aesthetics - as only one raised in the Dark Lands and well-familiar with the insane interior of the fortress that housed the Obsidian Pool could have – compared with that possessed by other surface dwellers, and so she would breathe a tiny gasp of appreciation upon their approach to the House itself. It really did look as though its dark stone might spring to some sort of hideous life, like the hearth back at the Corpse, and be all too happy to devour her. It was wonderful. When Kuzial stopped, she watched his hands, this time moving to impart no message she could understand, sigils not for her. Upon his whisper, close enough to her cheek for her to feel the warmth of the drow’s breath, she would cant her head and shoulders back, staring at him with eyes like green, pale fire centrally shot with jagged, black coals. …. Whore? For a moment, she did indeed struggle not to express her response in the unvocalised language of a surface murderess, its syllables wordless inches of honed steel. But too, she was aware of the dangers to herself here, and bowed to necessity. And if it was a whore he wanted....Deftly, she undid a few buttons here, loosed a few laces there, pierced her own finger with a sharp tooth and smeared the deep, red result across dark-toned lips visible under the mystery of her hood. And, with a certain sway to her hips, her head held an appropriately submissive angle, a whore would be what the denizens of House Stavret would see, slight of frame and lush of figure, trailing behind their muscular Patron.


Kuzial can almost taste her anger at his command, and he spends an instant enjoying it. His senses heightened by the oncoming slaughter of his father, and his own wary edge whenever he walks the lightless depths of the Underdark, he has to tear himself away from staring at the flesh she so deftly bares. But he has a mission, and there is no force on Hollow, and especially not one that lives in his pants, strong enough to sway him from its dangerous path. Silently behind them the gates shut, and with the pride of ownership Kuzial stalks into the doors that open into a vast chamber, Jolie's bag still slung over his wide shoulders. One wall is dedicated only to weapons, but unlike the surface dwellers weapons that are beautiful as well as deadly, drow blades are grounded in the realms of necessity. No drow blade has stories that begin 'in days of yore'. They are kept as long as their edges scream for blood, and discarded without a backwards glance when no longer of use. So all the weapons that sit upon the wall are within easy grasp for a warrior, and with the insignia Jolie wore she would see the shimmering around the few that are laced with deadly traps, in case an eager slave decided to arm himself - thankfully for them, it has never happened. The other wall is dedicated to vast tapestries that are deftly drawn in an expensive ink that glows with different hues in the infrared light. Scenes depicting death and destruction are the sole theme of the wall, and above all else is the same picture that is the house's symbol. The blind drow matron being stalked by two huge spiders. At the far end of the hall sits Kuzial's throne. Carved from solid granite, it is grotesque - each angle seems a contradiction that grates on the nerves; the very picture of entropy that so drives drow life. The patron doesn't bother to hide his pride, though every feature and gesture of a drow is always calculated, in this he is honest, "My power. Many a scream has filled this hall with its unholy music." On que, another scream comes from a door that stands behind the throne. "Oh yes.. many..." He walks slowly down the length of the hall, leading them to that destination. The room seems empty of other drow - well prepared was Kuzial, even before Jolie agreed. Such is his way.


The Patron’s impending act had set him afire, flesh and soul – she could sense both, the roiling heat of his murderous purpose, in his scent and in the stance he took as he walked, in the cruel and triumphant tone of his words. It was something like the old days, she mused, the feeling in her that all this, him – the weapons – that impressively awful throne – that all of his grandeur and arrogance inspired. Vampires and drow were not so very different, in a few ways – and this love of death and cruelty, and of the dark and the darknesses it hides were among those similarities. “Your power,” she murmured, head low, her courtesan’s sway bringing her not-quite to his side. “Is truly magnificent, Patron.” The screams went as noticed, and as un-noticed, as might music playing in another room, Jolie saw, as they passed to the less populated section of the dwelling. “You must tell me the story behind your insignia some time,” she whispered, once they were far enough along that empty hall. “It’s quite.. unusual.”


Kuzial nods his head at her words of praise towards the dark magnificence that is his house. To her question he answers with whispered words, "I will explain it to you on the day you tell me where you learned the language of my fine race, Lady Darkness." He nods once more, before stopping at the door which glows faintly with enchantments. Even Joliette would see the glow, her gifted house insignia granting her that right, as with the weapons. As he reaches it, Kuzial raises a hand to stop the necromancer before speaking a series of words in his paradoxically beautiful language. The shimmering pattern of light fades, and the sound of bolts clicking can be heard for a many a moment, before it finally opens on silent hinges. There, before the drow and necromancer, hanging naked in chains that bite deep into his ankles and wrists, is the former patron Vorx. His angular features are criss-crossed with hundreds of tiny cuts, his fingers are contorted at disgusting angles, each one broken more than once. His torso is a mass of welts, where he has been whipped by every member of the house - his punishment for the sin of cowardice. Both his knees have been shattered by hammers, and it is blatantly clear Kuzial and his brother are the only children he will ever sire - for a vital part of his body was cooked by magical flames, before he was driven to eat it by the sadistic magicks of the drow priestesses. He is conscious still, but all he can do is scream in unfathomable agony. The drow do not remove tongues - their ears are deaf to all but his screams; any pitiful offer is scoffed at. Kuzial remains silent as he lets the lady darkness admire the pain flowing from the man, before he speaks, "I want his soul imprisoned within this." He pulls the stone from his neck, "Do so, and anything you require within the Underdark will be yours."


Jolie had smirked with blood-coloured lips at the drow’s quid pro quo offer, having really expected nothing less. She did not reply to it, however, her attention suddenly and wholly absorbed, first by the arcane fire of the door and the Patron’s hand, then the thrumming magic of those words spilled from his mouth, musical, entrancing and utterly evil all at once - and, when those many locks had finally been sprung, by the sight presented by the opening of the door. The necromancer stood in silence for quite some time, taking in the figure of the older male re-made into a parody of itself, very little to nothing left in it now of the proud being it must have been. What art these people have, she mused to herself, and dared a step forward, keeping her silence still for a long moment after Kuzial had spoken. He’d have to hold that amulet out for the space of several breaths before the sineater turned to him, slowly, the joy of murder in her eyes. “Really?” Her tone was falsely casual, her grin very white in that natural and perpetual gloom. “Anything?”


Kuzial returns her grin with one of his own; one free from constraint as they are finally completely alone. And in that look another glimpse into the twisted remnants of a soul; the lack of any passion that is not hatred; joy found only in the suffering of one's enemies. The silly surface dwellers thought they knew evil when a new idiot called some tavern patron a whore, but how foolish they are shown to be in the light of drow cruelty unleashed. And there she was, the famed Tenebrae, glorying in the destruction of flesh and pride as much as any drow could. So he waits a moment, sharing a pernicious smile with the necromancer as the wails of terror mingled so beautifully with agony sound from the chained Vorx, before he fully extends the stone. He makes no effort to stop his eyes roaming over her body, before he replies with casual tones that match her own, though his are layered with a lewdness unhidden, "Anything."


Jolie’s grin reduced to a pursed little moue, and she nodded absently, though those peridot eyes, freed of the hood she pushed back from her face shone with a nearly feral light. She said nothing more, but held out her slender hand, palm up to receive the stone. Putting business before… other business, she reached with her other hand, gesturing for the pack in which was contained the necessary accoutrements of this difficult spell. None were without risk, here. None moreso, however, than the pathetic, broken thing hanging on the wall. Kuzial would witness, as she laid each item out .. candles, brazier, censers, blades… an odd change, more odd than the partial wolfing that left her as dark as he, more odd than any shift in demeanour she affected thus far. What he was seeing was a woman leaving behind every shred of her ;… well hardly humanity, but her persona, as it was… and adopting the sere, chill mien of a Master Necromancer.


Kuzial grins all the wider as Jolie's blood-stained lips form their little pout; for a male raised in a city struggling to remain dominated by vicious, sadistic priestesses who are locked away from their malevolent goddess, consent is not high on the male's agenda. But there is something about Joliette Thorne that dissuades the dominating male. Something that drives him to hate and desire her with equal passion. As she makes her request for the bag, he effortlessly shifts it from his shoulder to place it at her feet. While the necromancer prepares her dark art, Kuzial takes a moment to speak to his father. "Though our house may fall, our city crumble to dust, your suffering will never end." The dark elf puts his hand under the screaming Vorx's chin and lifts his face to stare eye to eye with the son who has planned his demise, "You scream in your sleep; a nightmare of death and pain stalking you... see my eyes, foolish one... remember them... for they will be the eyes that stalk you until the end of time." With a grin filled with hatred the dark elf lets his father's head hang once more, before stepping out of the way. He does not offer to help the necromancer, he knows she will request any aid she needs. He merely waits with the air of casual patience, though the tense muscles in his neck show he is ready to strike at the slightest hint of betrayal. One can never be too careful around those who dance with death...


Jolie had waited for Kuzial to finish his speech – if he’d glanced her way at the end of it, he’d see that hitch of brow and line of lip which said, ‘if you are quite done with that now…’ - and then the necromancer spoke, with all the outward trappings of her art at the ready, including the soul-stone pendant, the chain of which she would drape around the former Patron’s neck, “You have done much of the preparatory work for me, Kuzial. Thankyou for it.” She took a stick of what looked like an oily kind of chalk and began drawing dark designs on her own face and arms. “Be silent now. Be still.” The words were not for the exhausted captive, who was bellowing low, like a wounded animal. He was not far off one, really, at this point. She’d turn to the younger drow, then, and without waiting for his approval decorated him with same protective sigils. The next words she spoke were low and guttural, and contained far too many consonants to make them comfortably pass over humanoid vocal cords, but pass they did and Kuzial would sense, in his marrow first, and in the core of his mind, his heart, radiating outward, a horrible chill that, once it reached his skin, set those eldred runes aglow with a deep indigo non-light. “I’ll need you to cut into his chest,” Jolie breathed, “But not until I give the word.” She handed him a dagger that was not decorated by any means visible to the eye but its hilt would feel as oily as that paint on his face, and as clammy as his own skin, and would seem to writhe in his grasp as if unwilling to wielded by him.


Kuzial remains tense, but motionless as Jolie decorates his flesh with her arcane symbols. Had she not done her own first, he would have does his best to cut her black heart from her ample chest, but in following herself he trusts enough not to react with his typical violence. As her words ring out he feels the dark cold penetrating his very core - as if Death himself were reaching in and grabbing his still beating heart. His angular features do not react however, and as the runes on his flesh glow with their necromantic unlight he finds breath once more. To her words he silently nods, and even manages a faint sadistic smile, but it soon melts from his face as he takes the dagger. Like a serpent so common amongst his female kin, it seems to seek release from his grasp; an almost tangible desire within its fleshly warm steel to strike down this man who so arrogantly would hold it. But hold it he does as he makes his way to stand before the prone former patron. And there he waits - sickened by the sentient evil that seems to permeate his very soul; an evil that seems greater, more immortal and unyielding than anything possible for a mortal... even a drow.


Jolie would make a magical circle – these do not, past acolyte level need to be physically drawn out, and so the wall was no impediment to its making – around the three, with the manacled patron at its centre. A smaller knife was taken up, which had been suspended by a thin chain over a censer in which burned an acrid mixture of toxic herbs and other, even less wholesome materials. This slender blade was used to make quick, deft cuts - x-shapes incised upon six points of the elder drow’s naked flesh: the crown of his head, his brow, the base of his throat, the hollow of his solar plexus and a space just below his navel. Then, finally she carved the same mark in the wound of the ragged hole where his genitals had been. Vorx’s son may or may not recognise that she’d missed a point – the one central to his chest, where the soul stone rested. All this while she was chanting, ignoring the presence of Kuzial and the moans and cries of their victim alike, her voice taking a strange and almost metallic quality, deepening as she incanted on and on, and all the while around them grew a looming sense of intangible peril. And then Joliette raised one palm, on which was drawn an oily, black eye, and this was slapped down hard upon the soul stone with enough force to indent the skin below. When the old patron’s eyes rolled in his head and his mouth grew slack, and his screaming finally stopped, she passed that same hand across the elder’s body, rapidly and in a craze of motion, the necromancer’s own frame tilting, dipping at the knee and straightening, her hair swinging as she moved. And now and then, by virtue of the sigils painted upon him, Kuzial might glimpse a very faint glow moving rapidly below the patron’s skin and then vanishing again. On and on this went, on and on until Jolie dripped sweat and the lines painted on her body threatened to blur, and a darkness that was felt rather seen would crowd in on them all like a dense and suffocating smog.


Kuzial finds the sickly scent filling the room to be offensive; not so much to his physical senses, but more to the very essence of his mind, his soul. He remains as still as he can, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder at the growing sense of menace filling the dark room. He feels as if he was a child, hunted by imagined predators greater than any in life. But he is a patron drow. He will not be cowered by his fear. As Joliette makes her rapid motions, slicing his father's flesh with a... not surgical... more serial killer precision, he doesn't notice her not marking the chest. Though his knowledge of drow magic is high - more to combat it than any real desire to practice the art - his knowledge of necromancy is limited. And so he remains thus, watching her with malevolent pleasure; fearing and hating the powerful necromancer all at once, and struggling to draw breath without breathing in too much of the toxic smoke filling the torture chamber with a stench that will last long after the night's dark work is complete.


The former patron’s soul, knocked loose from its natural lodging-place, fled along the meridians of the victim’s body, along those energetic pathways only to find no surcease from the agony inflicted upon it by the necromancer’s terrible incantations and the dark, invisible glare of that roving eye painted upon her palm, through which Death itself was watching, grinning its bony grin. It was a race of sorts – Vorx was near to passing from this world entirely, after which the capture of his soul would prove impossible, and so Jolie sped the ritual as much as she dared do so, sensing his pulse going thready and weak, noting the shallowness of his breath which hardly stirred his withered, broken ribcage now. That little light fled and fled, like a mad insect trapped in a window’s glass coffin, until it found nowhere else to go but to that place above which the soul stone was imbedded in skin, back to where it had come from. Jolie’s chant changed, abruptly shrill and terrible to ear and heart both - a harpy’s fell triumph, a banshee’s wailing, a fury’s incensed shrieks - and this dire ululation cut off, as surely as a knife, the lines of power that led to any further escape for the soul of the elder Stavret. Simultaneously, its former haven became a bed of nails, a nest of thorns, the words of the canta flying sharp as broken glass, as shrapnel. In contrast, the soul stone seemed a quiet place, a sanctuary, and there was a flash, a sudden illumination in that dim and febrile room as the soul of the old patron made the leap from flesh to amulet. Two words were less spoken than barked, then – horrible words, terrible words - and blood began to drip thickly from the necromancer’s nose. “Now!” cried Jolie, praying Kuzial would recognise the order to open the old man’s chest.


Kuzial requires all the strength he has gained throughout his cruel life to resist covering his ears with his palms. The primal desire to scream aloud; to destroy everything; to slay the necromancer with his fine weapons... anything possible to end her disgusting ritual burns within the black wasteland that is his soul. But he will not give in to his driving sense of self preservation. He stands like a rock amongst a violent sea; refusing to give in to the waves of malice that seek to crumble him into an insignificant nothingness. Bile rises to his mouth, assaulting his senses with further distaste, and still that dagger seems to writhe in his hands, feeling to the young Stavret as if it were poisoning his body from the inside, corrupting his fine ebon flesh beneath the twisted symbols drawn by Tenebrae. As she screams her command he reacts without any of his typically languid grace. The one step closer he must make is like an eternity, for he fights against every animalistic instinct in his body that screams for him to put as much distance between himself and the necromancer. But he is not a slave to his instinct; he delves into the bottomless pit of hatred and malice that fuels his every motion and summons the darkness required for him to commit this desecration. His hand holding the dagger is steady as it slices through Vorx's withered flesh, cutting a sanguine line that parts the skin with a sickening ease, exposing beneath a heart that seems to still beat to an unholy rhythm. Eyes wild with a spectrum of dark emotions shift to the necromancer and Kuzial wonders, albeit briefly, how he could have ever desired this woman who seems to be the living embodiment of everything dark and twisted in the world.


Jolie’s small fingers plunged inside that red cavity to grasp Vorx’s beating heart, which fluttered in her grip like a small and terrified animal, and was pulled free as far as veins and arteries would allow. Her head tilted back and a final word, a finishing word, gurgled over her lips while her fist closed suddenly harder, crushing that life-supporting muscle to a limp and bloody pulp. The dead muscle would be wholly torn from its corpse, then, the necromancer’s lips drawing back in a feral rictus, small fang-tipped eye-teeth shining sharp in the dim flicker of ritual candlelight. “It is done,” she said, her voice a hoarse rasp, and then the woman they once more called Tenebrae would crumple to the floor like a dark-skinned, blood-smirched doll, the heart of Kuzial’s father tumbling wetly from her hand.


Kuzial feels part of his soul wither and die as the final act of Jolie's depraved spell is complete. His eyes, always callous and cruel, but now shining with the faint hints of the truly forsaken - those who have seen beyond the lines of good and evil into a world of damnation beyond mortal comprehension - shift to the broken remnants of the bloody heart, and then raise to the face of his father. And oh how he glories in the twisted grimace of terror, that look of putrid horror that has turned once beautiful features into a mask of ugliness beyond explanation as if in the final moments of his life he fully realized the extent of his forsaken fate. But he cannot glory for long, for at his feet lays the necromancer. Without a backward glance Kuzial drops the bloody dagger in his hand and bends down to pick her up. Even unconscious she seems to emit an eternal evil, but he holds her true against his chest and turns from the room - leaving his father's remains held by the chains. He has no fear anyone will enter the room and take from his neck the soul-stone, glowing now with its incarcerated life. Only Kuzial would enter that room until far after his house had faded to dust. For such desecration of mind and soul leaves in its wake an unholy residue of nefarious poison. Only those who have seen such depravity could ever stomach entering where Jolie had cast her wicked magic. With her held close he walks from the room, turning to take her through a small door that leads to his own private chambers. With a gentleness unlike the drow's normal nature he lays her upon his own bed. He would leave her there until she woke, but he would not leave the room. He stands as silent guard at the door, his very expression enough to send any slaves or drow alike running from the vast hall that houses his throne, until she returned to the realms of consciousness.


Several Hours Later


She woke with her face stuck to fine silk pillow ruined by the blood that had dripped from her nose. Tearing it loose, Jolie groaned and tried again to lift her head, which was thumping like a troupe of goblins in hobnail boots were holding a craic in there and kicking the back of her eyes as they do-se-do’d past them. “Oh…” her hand groped thin air, for something solid… and found another pillow, this pulled against her chest as a traumatised child hugs its rag-cloth bunny. “My head…” She was pale again, the wolf in her having fled from the dreams that had buckled her small frame and made her cry out in what was less slumber than a mind forcing itself into well-deserved retreat. She had not yet dared to open her eyes. “Water. I need.. where… Guh…”


Kuzial was by Jolie's side the moment she let out her first word. For a moment his eyes are haunted as he once again gazes on her face, before he reaches out and picks up a small cup that lays on a table beside his bed. It is water from the Underdark. An always cool liquid that is infused with certain properties of this subterranean world. To a surface dweller it may taste odd, but not unpleasant. To the drow it acts almost like coffee, bringing them from their reverie faster than almost anything. To a lycanthropic woman... he does not know. With one hand he cradles the back of her head, lifting it up enough that he can put the brim of the glass against her blood-stained lips. "Drink, lady darkness..." He speaks in the language of the drow, a reminder to her where she is, "You are, as far as you can ever be in this world... safe." He cannot quite stop the sardonic humor in his tones: Few in all the world would consider laying barely conscious on the bed of a psychotic drow safe. And yet, it is true.


Jolie choked a little on that chill liquid, redolent of minerals and earthiness, but that first swallow had her eyelids flutter open, narrowed as her gaze rested foggily upon Kuzial, scrunched not against light but awareness, thought, the impulses that shot through shocked synapses like electric darts, piercing her awake and nearly causing her to be sick all at once. “Did we…. is he…?” Not yet able to form a coherent sentence, she made do with snatches of speech.


Kuzial grins down at Jolie as he returns the cup to the table. If he is at all bothered by the blood-stains covering his fine bed, he does not show it. Instead he lets that grin grow free; an expression of pernicious hatred and glorious triumph mingled so seamlessly together. "Yes, lady darkness. Vorx is no more, and the stone glows with the light of his tortured soul. You have done well.." Absently he wipes away a trail of blood that had flowed down her cheek, coming from her nose. Though there is no sense of compassion or caring in the small gesture, more a desire to see how truly coherent she is.


Jolie reached a badly shaking hand to brush it against the drow’s, letting it fall heavily back to the luxuriant bedding after. “Good.. good.” Her breath seemed strained with the effort of talking and her eyes threatened to close of their own will, and would roll a little in her head as she attempted once more to rise from the pillows. “I feel…” like death, she was going to say, death on a stick. “… ought to go home.”


Kuzial whispers, "Shhhh... rest..." A concerned look comes to his eyes, and were any to see, they would think his concern is for the pained necromancer. But they would be wrong - his concern is purely selfish. Such a woman is far more valuable alive than dead. So he speaks again in his own tongue; the sound beautiful, were it not for the underlying evil that lurks ever in the tones of any real drow, "You are safe here... Rest, and then what you desire shall be made yours."


Jolie said, “Caramel horsie…” or something which sounded a lot like it in the very tiny and breathy voice she used as the sineater curled up on herself, clutching that pillow to her chest with white-knuckled hands turned rust-splotched by dried arterial spray. Still, she looked a little like a peculiar and gothic doll, small and bloody, as she once more lapsed out of the waking world and into that dark-lit mental space where caramel horsies might indeed exist, alongside ruined drow carcasses and wolves who spoke with forked tongues.


Kuzial doesn't know quite how to react to her request, but as her eyes fall shut and her breathing shifts to the rhythm of sleep, the drow allows himself a final predatory smile. This had indeed gone well. With silent steps he leaves her side, stopping briefly to close the door behind him: A door that will not open to anyone other than Kuzial. He would hear her if she awoke, he is certain. For just a moment he stares around his grand hall - the pictures on the wall, the weapons, all seem somehow petty against the enormity of what the two did. Never one for such deep contemplation, Kuzial shrugs his shoulder with a languid gesture and makes his way to the door that houses the remnants of his father. He cannot press himself to enter the room just yet. But his hungry gaze looks over the scene of deathly desecration; unholy might that has not been seen in Trist'Oth for many a year, laid bare to eyes that take in the twisted corpse and a glowing stone that has come to rest over the grotesque wound. He smiles again, before whispering a series of words. Once again the door shuts with the sound of bolts clicking, before it emits a faint glow. Safe within the room, Kuzial turns and stalks to his throne, where he sits silently, letting his mind wander through the possibilities such power does gift.