RP:The Boy and His Blade
Summary: Laezila seeks out Larewen in search of Nymh. When Larewen seems unlikely to reveal the location of the boy, Laezila threatens harm upon House D'Jiv'undus. A deal is made with the strange drow matriarch, one that provides Larewen access to Nymh and Scatterscourge while simultaneously ensuring that no harm befalls Daath's House.
Hanging Corpse Tavern
This once-timber tavern has been rebuilt in sturdily vitrified blackstone and imbued with powerful protective magics that prevent occult fire and several other potentially harmful spells being cast within its walls. No effort has been spared to make what might otherwise be a bleak interior comfortable. The bar is made of polished stone with an oaken inlay, the space behind filled with a bustle of attractive barmaids, sundry barrels and a dazzling array of coloured bottles that glint in the light cast by a large wrought-iron candelabrum suspended from the ceiling overhead. Here, the one-eyed Steadman stands, ready to take orders for food or drink. Beyond the bar, stout tables are firmly bolted to the floor, though the high-backed chairs are freestanding. The hearth is a true feature, seeming to be cast from black lava into the shape of a colossal, laughing goblin's head, its maw gaping wide and deep, usually containing a merrily crackling fire. A delicious scent of roasting meats drifts in from the kitchens and a winding staircase leads to rooms upstairs. To the south are set cellar doors, usually kept locked unless a special event is taking place. The walls are hung with thick, richly woven tapestries depicting persons and events in the history of Vailkrin and the Vampiric race. There's also a notice-board near the entrance, where one may leave messages. Unobtrusive but ever-present are the security staff, staunch fighters ever ready to toss troublemakers out.
Larewen sat near the flickering hearth, a bottle of blood wine opened before her and a stemmed glass alongside it. There were still a few mouthfuls of the carmine fluid within its bowl, but only a few drops in the bottle. A tome was opened before the necromancer, to a page that was smeared with dried blood. It was an incantation she'd already attempted and one she'd since begun to hone, and thus she was only reviewing. Or at least, that's how it appeared. Truly, the elf's mind was absent altogether.
Laezila was not usually alone, and that was true in this particular case as well, as she entered the Tavern between two pairs, one of vampire drow, and one of enormous lycan drow, whose muscles rippled beneath taut black flesh from the patches visible, while the rest was covered with plated layers of darksteel armor; such armor was able to expand and contract with the shifting of figures. The vampires were imposing, muscled, and tall, but split at the entry outside, to guard the doors, while the lycans did the same for the inside after rounding up the rest of the patrons and quite unceremoniously shoving them out. Once clear, Laezila would approach Larewen; she was certainly an enigma. Her frame was small and although she dressed provocatively with a sleek black dress that showed off quite a bit of skin, it was clear that the mysterious matron was around the age of a human equivalent to a teenager by the build and stature. Her face was covered with a smooth, faceless mask that was half charred black and half ivory, with two strikingly blue eyes peering from the eyeholes.
Larewen did not turn to regard the matron and her entourage as people were shooed from the establishment; nor did she offer a vocalized greeting. She had not been approached and ushered out, and for that fact alone it was assumed that the necromancer was who the matron sought. Fair enough, as far as Larewen was concerned. She was not surprised by the visit, it seemed - she'd peered into Nymh's mind, and had expected such a meeting to occur. Her nostrils flared as she took in not only the matron's scent, but that of the wolves at the door and the leeches without. Gloved fingers reached out to snare the stem of her glass and it was raised to her lips and sipped before the elf spoke. "You must be Laezila," she said, her voice a silver-bell sweetness upon the now silent air. "And your visit, I assume, is to find the boy Gevurah was to sell you." She spoke with certainty, confirming her acquaintance with Nymh before Laezila could even ask.
Laezila continued to approach without words until she came to a halt just before the table that separated vampire and young drow, yet that mask hindered the revelation of any expression that might've formed behind it, and it just appeared that her eyes were striking, staring, rather than any hint to her mood. "Yes." She answered, simply; in her left hand she held a katana loosely by the hilt, and the soft sound of its tip touching the floor might've been echoed as it came to rest vertically like that. If Larewen could tell, she might notice that it belongs to Krice. Her single word was both muffled and augmented by her mask, which only further veiled what emotions might've been held with it.
Larewen turned her head toward the masked youth, her own features unobscured by the veil and hat that she typically wore. Dark, bistre-hued waves were drawn over one shoulder. Her skin was not as ashen as one might have expected, and that coupled with the point of her ears betrayed that in life, she'd been one of the wood elves against which the drow now waged war with once more. The blade did not escape her notice, and though it was vaguely familiar, she'd only crossed paths with the silver-haired warrior once, maybe twice. Heard of him, too, but there was little interest in him. "And what, praytell, gives you the idea that I know the whereabouts of your little coward?"
Laezila merely wrapped slender, silk-gloved fingers by their tips against the tabletop as if in patience, "You ask me for information that you already know?" Another patient, or perhaps impatient now (it was extremely difficult to tell with the distortion of her voice and the mask that obscured all her expressions. "Gevurah spoke highly of you, so I can assume you like games of words like politicians. I do not."
Larewen responded with a raise of her bare shoulder. "Clearly," she replied in kind, finishing the glass of bloodwine. Her eyes closed for a moment, her nostrils flaring once more as she took in the matron's scent this time. She could hear the thrum of blood as it ran through her veins. "You seem to know of me, though. Gevurah brought me a gift, when she wished to gain something from me. What have you got?" Her gaze slid past Laezila, to the two guards that stood within. "More guards, I can see. Do you intend to kill me, if I fail to provide you with the information you seek?"
Laezila, again, rapped her fingertips against the tabletop as those striking blue eyes bore into Larewen; if there was even the slightest hint of fear, it did not show. No emotion showed, just a striking blaze of her blue eyes that seemed to be piercing, rather than displaying. Her voice both augmented and muffled simultaneously by the curvature of the half-charred mask that was once entirely ivory rang forth, whatever emotion with it since distorted and unrecognizable, "No. I do not like to be bothered when I am speaking with someone." Her blood, however, revealed more than her mask and gaze hid. Being surrounded by vampires and lycans, it was recognizable that Laezila took painstakingly thorough steps to hide what her taste and scent would reveal, but Larewen's transcendancy among them could perhaps discover what she was hiding. Behind that mask was a full-blooded, young drow woman who had made her life on slaughter, on cruel, cunning calculation and merciless efficiency; she made her name on her ruthless savagery and that of her House, but beyond all of that she hid a past of violation, of being tortured and abused, used and permanently marked. Her scent was tainted beneath all of those covers carefully used to hide it, with the permanent scent of those who wronged her, and her blood poisoned by scars of starvation, deprivation, dehydration, and desperation. All of it suppressed by the role that that mask played. "But I will kill House D'Jiv'undus and every member of it, if you don't. Or you could stop playing these useless games of back and forth and tell me what it would be you desire in return for your services."
Larewen allowed an amused smirk to twist her pale lips upward in lieu of the first set of words to vacate the drow's lips. The story told upon the inhale of the matron's scent was strangely enticing, and not in the same manner that the blood of innocents were. It was... to her, almost akin to a fine wine. Finer than what she could purchase in this establishment, anyway. Whatever words had begun to form on the tip of her lips fell quiet as the threat toward House D'Jiv'Undus was voiced. The only visible reaction from the elf was a faint tensing of her jaw and a brief flash in those dark, chocolate hued eyes. "And what reason would I have to care about the fate of D'Jiv'Undus?" she queried, curious as to how Daath's house played into the equation. Exactly how highly had Gevurah spoken of her to this matron? Better yet, what had been said that would give Laezila even an inkling of an idea that Larewen cared for the fate of her guildmaster's house?
Laezila now shifted just a bit, in order to tap the point of that katana against the floor. "Perhaps you don't. We would find out, wouldn't we? But I further advise you to not continue this path; many had tried it before you, and either died or still live in regret of it. Simply tell me what it is you wish as payment, and I may pay you in return for your services."
Larewen flashed Laezila a fanged grin in lieu of her words, easily hiding any emotion that had been stirred by the threat to D'Jiv'Undus. "Remorse is not an emotion I feel any longer, nor do I have anything to gain by protecting the boy. There is one thing I want in exchange for his location, and I do hope you realize that that will require a continued relationship between the two of us," the elf said. The sweetness had left her voice in favor of a tone that belied an insatiable hunger. "He has in his possession a cursed blade that I wish to study. I want access to it whenever I feel the desire."
Laezila 's striking gaze still stared at Larewen, without any hint to whether or not she even registered Larewen's explanation, "A cursed blade. How interesting." There was no hint to her sarcasm except for the complete lack of enthusiasm that accompanied the words and the tap of that blade against the floorboards. "Not when you feel the desire. Walking into my House uninvited is quite liable to get you face to face with a beholder, and they -love- vampire minds." A beholder was a terrible creature to come into contact with. They had many flexible eyestalks on the top and each possess a different magical nature; most importantly for beings such as Larewen was that the main eye projects an anti-magic ray in a conical shape outward, though the other eyes employed different spell-like abilities. Laezila, of course, implying that she had not in her possession just one, but more, tapped the forehead of her mask indicative of thought before her hand lowered to the tabletop. "You will have to give me a day's notice before your arrival, and you must endeavor as much as possible to not harm the boy with your studies, and then you have a deal."
Larewen arched a brow upward, the amusement unfaltering. "How kind of you, Laezila," she remarked with a lift of her chin. "One day's notice it is then, and no harm to the boy." The grin finally faded, if only so that Larewen could concentrate then. Lids closed over her eyes as her magic was drawn upon and extended outward suddenly. It was not the half-drow that she was tracking in that moment, but rather Shatterscourge. A few moments passed before the necromancer received a call in answer, which coaxed the corners of her lips upward once more. Shatterscourge favored her over its master, and this she found amusing - and unsurprising. "Your query is in Frostmaw."
Laezila did not express gratitude aside from a simple, "Very well," before she whirled, and left the way she came; the hunt was on.