RP:Sitting in a Tin Can

From HollowWiki


Summary: After a daring escape from Trist'oth Mahri turns up at Dragana Manor to respond to Quintessa's missive, only to discover a dire situation. 27 rats, 13 cats, 11 dogs, and eight chickens later, Kasyr is back in stable condition.


House Dragana

Towering over the abyssal forest, the dark mass of House Dragana is no less eerie than the vegetation, or lack thereof, in which it stands. The mansion's outer perimeters are flanked by the twisting trees and there are no gates to prevent the seemingly less desirable denizens of the forest from trespassing upon the property. A sleek, obsidian walkway runs from the house's entry to the path. The only source of light without comes form wrought-iron lanterns that are placed on either side of the walkway, spaced perfectly from one another. Within them, an eldritch glow of a deep, verdant hue flickers. Those brave enough to approach House Dragana's doors will be greeted with iron knockers bearing blackened skulls, their eyes set with emeralds that glow with the same light from the lanterns. Within the house's walls, there is no shortage of decadence. Only the most elegant of furniture is placed throughout its rooms. A grand staircase of blackened wood leads to the upper levels, where rooms for those that reside within the house can be found. Midway up, the stairs split to the left and right, spiraling upward. Here, there is a landing with a set of double doors that leads to a large ballroom. The lower level of the house plays host to a dining area and kitchen, though rarely used, a grandiose library filled with grimoires and tomes, and a small museum of artifacts collected by the house's residents. Though there appear to be no candles to light the way, an ethereal glow floods the innards of the house, providing ample reading light - undoubtedly arcane in origin. Dark magic is weaved into the house's existence as a measure of protection.


Quintessa looks over Kasyr in her laboratory as she scribbles down her notes recording his condition. The girl hadn't slept a wink since she returned from Trist'oth with Kasyr. How could she sleep? She had to monitor him to make sure his life force didn't sputter and flicker out. Dark circles were seen under the changeling's eyes (it's not her makeup this time) and more than once she had to shoo her servants away when they tell her to relax. She was not going to relax! Quintessa paces back and forth in the room, occasionally trading out her clipboard for her channeling crystal and holding it over the runes scribbled on the slab and tin can she had wrapped around Kasyr. Once she's satisfied that a suffice amount of mana was stored within the feedback loop she created, she steps back, wiping her forehead and smearing the blood across her face. She's still covered in blood and ash from that encounter, her sword is still wet, her shoulder bleeding slowly. How long had it been? At least half a day, surely. Quintessa steps away, leaving Kasyr alone in her lab as she steps out into the hallway. Mismatched eyes flicker between the zombies lurking outside her door. "Let nobody inside." she commands them, and they move to block the entrance with their bodies as the hex blade returns to her foyer. Quintessa had many other matters she had to attend to now that the Drow were known traitors.


Mahri arrived, note in hand, only to be told that she wasn't allowed in. Now, the woman wasn't often loud, but she could smell blood, the changeling and Kasyr. The servent who answered the door, while following orders, was going to get stabbed in the neck if he, or she, didn't let her in, which she said quite loudly, "She sent for me, you idiot, now take me to her.... Oh forget it, I'll find her myself." The lycan'll try and push her way through and past following her nose and if stopped, well, ther's going to be one hells of a comotion in the entry


Kasyr , unlike the changeling, has not awoken since he lapsed into an all consuming dreamless 'sleep', which may as well be indistinguishable to a casual observer to simple death- so shallow are the movements of his chest. Indeed, the swordsman's flesh has grown so cold and clammy that the nickname of Ashen is grimly fitting. That he's alive at all by this point can be solely attributed to the desperate necromancy that fuels his failing body- somehow keeping him on the cusp of living, despite the cavernous ruin that was his stomach and the profound fissures which scored his skin. Honestly, so injury riddled is his nigh-carcass like state, that it'd be all too easy to overlook the mangled mess that made up his right hand.


Quintessa is luckily already on her way to her office when her steward shuffles in to warn her that some crazed woman had barged her way inside. "My Lady!" he shouts, "S-she knocked right through the zombies! I tried to tell her not to come inside but-" "Shut up!" Quintessa cuts him off, "That's Mahri you idiot. She's allowed inside!" With that command issued, all of the undead would suddenly ignore and avoid contact with the lycan. The changeling hurried down the stairs to meet her friend. "Mahri!" Quintessa is happy to see her, "Sorry about the trouble. Undead are tough, not bright." She glowers at her steward and he slinks against the wall to let Mahri pass unhindered. "You don't know how fortuitous your timing is. Can you heal wounds? My... er... Enseignant is upstairs and he could really use a hand..." Quintessa does her best to hide her concern while trying to ignore the spear puncture right above her shoulder blade. She had much more to worry about than a little flesh wound. "I- uh... Have been keeping him alive with necromancy but it's starting to fail. The spell was never intended to work this way I-" she cuts herself off to keep herself from panicking. "Please?" is all she has left to add.


Mahri 's only slightly put off when the zombies suddenly fall silent. Damn it, she'd have welcomed a good fight anyway. And then, there was Tessa, at the top of the stairs and her steward turning into a shrinking violet. With a snort, the wolf meets the changeling about half way up those stairs. A blink, then another. "Kasyr?" Because now silver eyes are sweeping over Tess with concern pinching their corners. "Is any of that blood yours. Any of it at all." Because that's a lot of fracking blood. "Where is he." But she'd already be rushing up the stairs and into the labratory, stopping suddenly to take in what had been done. Even the mangled hand."What the hells. You want..." Looking over her shoulder, the lycan presses her lips together. This is likely going to kill her but.. "Get all the living things you can find. Start small and get bigger. I mean bigger. I have to see what I'm working with." Not waiting to see if the Baroness would follow her orders, used to being obeyed as she was, Mahri walks over to Kasyr and examines what she can see. Quite frankly, she has her doubts he can be healed, missing half his internals as it seemed. One hand mangled beyond repair. If only he was still a vampire. This really wouldn't be a problem. Or if she could bite him. He'd heal but slowly. Organs would probably grow back. The vital things, you know. Again she cursed and leaned over to put her face within inches of the Teiflings, "Listen. If I fail and you die, she," Tessa, "is never going to forgive us. If I don't fail and I die, I'll never forgive you. You are going to owe me big-time, Kas."


Kasyr doesn't really do anything halfway, if both his prior track record, and the recent trail of calamity he's left in his wake is any sort of indication. Clearly, this penchant for overdoing things also applies to dying, and taking others with him. Not like he's really in a position to apologize to Mahri, in any case.


Quintessa leads Mahri up to the laboratory trying to answer what questions she could on the way. "Well, a little bit, I had to fight Gevurah's guards... Some of them were tricky. I've never had my magic cut off before..." Once they got inside the hex blade's lab, how dire the situation was set in all over again. "It's madness, Mahri. How could they do this to him... my beautiful Kasyr..." Quintessa gently touched the top of his head. "I'll gather all my live test subjects." She says, "And I'll round up bigger things... Giant things if I must." The baroness moves out into the hallway and commands her vassals to do her bidding. "Gather the cages from the basement. The rats and dogs. Check the dungeons as well, we might have some poor souls still locked away. I'll take Bloodbeak out and lure a spider back to my demesne. A team of skeletons should be ready with a net as usual..." The hex blade's voice fades down the halls as she leave them alone, leaving her men to lug the small animals in first, and then bigger animals, giving Mahri the extra life force she needed to heal the kensai.


Mahri will wait until all is prepared and the sounds of animals, big and small, fills the room. She had dragged a chair over to sit at Kassyr's head, her gloves removed to make better contact when she places one hand on either side of his head. "Tess, do you remember what happened in Frostmaw, with Magik? This is going to kind of be the same thing. Except actual healing is going to be done and no ice giants are going to attack us." Apparently, at some point, the two had done something interesting. Taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, palms make contact with temples. Letting it out slowly the druid centers herself, shutting out those noises that would soon fall silent anyway. She finds, within her own self, the threads of life that flowed through the room. The wolf's own aura flares a soft green as tendrils of her own life-force reached out to intertwine with that of those creatures and draw it within herself. She imagined a spool, spinning and wrapping up all those lines and sending it through her hands and fingers into the kensai. She had only once ever attempted to heal someone so grievously injured and it had almost killed her then. She must be freaking insane to try it again. Kasyr might feel, in that coma, heat spreading through his body, pushing out any poisons or potions. Knitting together flesh and bones. Organs that were missing; that would take more to regrow and repair so she concentrated first on the smaller injuries. Smaller compared to the void in the middle. Sweat beaded and trickled from her hairline and raven black hair cling to cheeks and neck. Slowly the animals settled in their cages, closed their eyes and simply breathed no more. Life for life, and this was going to take a lot of them.


Quintessa looks around at all the things gathered here. 27 rats, 13 cats, 11 dogs, 8 chickens, a pig, and some insane bearded man with a cold stare in his eyes. Also, there was a giant spider that was too big to fit inside, but had been incapacitated anyway. Now, she would just wait and watch. Healing magic, and druidic magic in general, were things she knew next to nothing about. "Yes, I remember," she said, thinking back to that moment in Frostmaw when she had run into Magik and Mahri during a healing season. "But this seems a tad more extreme than what was happening to Magik..."


Mahri 's probably gone through all the rats, the cats, dogs and four chickens. She's not even close to done yet.


Quintessa is sweating. Maybe she should have caught another spider? As the animals start dying off she wonders for a moment if visiting the slave pens would be a good idea. Too bad she didn't capture any Drow, they'd be perfect for this. No, she'd have to make due. What about her stables? There must have been a few horses that hadn't been eaten by Bloodbeak yet. "Fetch the horses!" Quintessa yells and her zombies shuffle away to fulfill their duty.


Kasyr could entirely be used as a diagram for what a vivisection might appear as, and yet, there's at least a single element here that Mahri could potentially appreciate. The Kensai had somehow managed to avoid getting poisoned in the underdark. That said, there was apt to be some remnants of the potion that were apt to spill out from his pores, as those morbid furrows in his flesh gradually begin to fill in with raw tissue and flesh.


Mahri didn't stop. She didn't even hear the order for bigger animals. Four chickens, a pig, a giant spider and lastly the crazed, bearded man would be falling silent for eternity. Unless Tessa had a use for them after this anyway. That energy is channeled into rebuilding Kasyr's body and Mahri visibly trembles in her seet, teeth starting to chatter and her skin takes on a grey palor beneath the light tan she'd been sporting from her time sailing. Building organs from energy too quite a bit, even the horses might not be enough as the lycan touched on her own reserves of mana to add to the effort. Kasyr's split belly would be the last to heal so Tessa might have the opportunity to watch those missing bits replenish themselves. Once that's done and one horse stands half living on those quadrupedal hooves, the druid slowly drops her hand and slumps in her seat, practically sliding off if she's not caught. Otherwise Tess is going to have a guest looking like death paid a visit to the wrong person on the floor.


Quintessa looks anxious. She could reanimate all these animals, no problem. The madman would make a lovely addition to her collection of vassals too, that wasn't the issue. Wouldit be enough. Quintessa is watching Kasyr regenerate, chewing of her finger, when she notices the state of Mahri. "Mah!" she gasps, moving over the catch her before she fell. Even with her damaged shoulder and her exhaustion, she was still strong enough to hold her for a moment before she can regain balance. "You're killing yourself," Quintessa exclaims, frowning as she looks back and forth between the human and the lycan. She can't afford to lose either of them. "Do you have to do this in one go? I can't reactivate the false life spell... Gather more creatures... Anything!"


Kasyr s' no longer swimming in oblivion, Mahri's efforts having drawn his consciousness forth from the bleak oblivion it had settled in. Perhaps the sharp intake of breath from the Kensai as the formation of functional organs settles in might prove to be a relief to his rescuers, but to the swordsman, it heralds in fresh and familiar nightmare. They're built up from his darkest memories, the tattered recollectiions that lingered within his psyche of hellish vistas composed of impossible angles. Of insurmountably tall structures built of infernal scale, and endless deserts of gleaming obsidian sands, both of which seem to stretch out as far as his minds eye can see. Perhaps they'll even take it as a good sign that his pulse is beating so strongly in that moment- Quintessa's hands likely too full (literally and figuratively) to notice the fine sheen of cold sweat breaking across the Kensais forehead.


Mahri is ice cold to the touch despite her natural inclination to be extremely warm. For a moment her eyes will open but instead of silver, a black slick covers the entire surface for a moment before slowly dissipating. "He'll live," she manages to whisper out, "Just get me to a bed." Mahri'll sleep it off. She's not about to die. She's just exhausted and needed rest to regain what she'd lost. Oh yea, Kasyr is going to owe her for this.


Quintessa helps Mahri to her guest rooms, making sure she had all the provisions necessary for a swift recovery. The changeling even offers Mahri a list of potions, a menu if you will, that she could test out that might expedite the healing process. She leaves it on her bedside table so she can look over it. No rush. It wasn't like she was in need of new test subjects or anything. Once the wolf had been tucked into bed, Quintessa returns to Kasyr to remove the bonds and tin can he'd been stuffed into, keeping the surviving slabs of metal aside for further research. Even thought her methods were crude, she might have been onto something with the whole metal body and false organ meta. It was worth looking into, at least. The changeling pulls a bowl of water and a cloth over and begins to clean the blood off of him, the sweat, the soot, and the dust from the climb up from the Underdark. "I'm still mad at you," she finally says as she cleans off his face, "Idiot."