RP:The Dead Horse

Part of the Once Upon a Midnight Dreary Arc

Part of the You Must Have Been Human Arc

Summary: Quintessa and Meri watch Kanna put an end to one pesky slave trader. The only good slave trader is a dead one.

The Misshapen Fortress

Before you stands the unfishished stronghold of Countess Quintessa Dragana, the Shield of the East. The uneven, ebony walls that enclose the area around the citadel are unbroken, save for two places; Heavy gates have been built into the dark stone, made of thick wood and plated in heavy Ghroundium, which is engraved with interwoven spiders and burnished to a silver-like shine. Within the walls, modeled after the famous Vailkrin Plaza and reinvisioned in a style she calls ‘Art Draco’, the Countess has had the streets paved in ebony stone and adorned with elegant, silvery street lights that glow an ominous green as the lime flames light the way. The black stone walls are left unadorned save for several green-burning sconces and a series of banners, each flag bearing the black hand of Vailkrin upon a shield wrapped in thorny, flowering vines. To the west lies a short path leading through a second pair of gates, taking you to a massive black spire that stretches into the gloomy Vailkrin skies above the Dark Forest. Although the fort remains unfinished, it is still large enough to house the temporary resident stonemasons and carpenters that work around the clock to build Quintessa’s vision, as well as the modest garrison that protects them. Along the walls there is not a moment that the Countess’ skeletal archers aren’t looking down on the surrounding area, nor is there a moment when her vampiric pikemen aren’t wielding halberds at the gates, ever ready to defend these walls from their Mistress’ enemies, domestic or forien. If you have business with House Dragana or the Necromancer’s Guild, you are free to roam here peacefully, but interlopers will not be tolerated. Loitering too long around here will get you reported to the Countess either way, after all, the shadows are always watching, especially within these walls.

Quintessa || Deep in the dark, cold recesses of Quintessa of Black Pond’s dungeons can be heard the faint sound of singing. A forlorn tune coming from the mouth of a sailor currently chained up in the laboratory part of the basement levels. No prisoner had ever returned from Quintessa’s lab alive and the sailor, former slave-trader Captian Morgan, knew this in her heart to be true. “My clothes are all in pawn, go down you blood red roses, go down... “ As her voice sadly echoes through the dank halls, her sad sea shanty drowning out the cries from deeper within, anyone who heard could guess that she’d figured out she’d never see the light of day again. “Oh my old mother she wrote to me, ‘My darling lass come home from sea.’ Go down you blood red roses, go down. Oh, you pinks and posies. Go down you blood red roses, go down…” The sound of singing is abruptly cut off by the sound of Quintessa’s laboratory door’s heavy lock creaking open, followed by the footsteps of those who would soon join Captain Morgan. “Ah, you’re still alive,” Quintessa half-heartedly notes as she passes by the single cell, her mismatched eyes harboring a terrible glint that somehow says ‘but not for much longer.’ With a shiver running up Morgan’s spine, she spits in her captor’s direction, a hollow symbol of defiance as the changeling takes her place at her laboratory table. “Aw, you sure you want to make me angry already? Remember what happened last time…” Morgan doesn’t seem phased, her face twisting up into a look of disgust. “Go to Hell, demon. You might think you’re better than me, with your tower built on blood and bones, but I know who you really are.” Quintessa only responds with a twisted smile as she folds her hands over her lap, awaiting her two companions tonight.

Kanna || Following behind the dark fae is a visitor terribly familiar to the former Captain: The bubbly but cannibalistic bardess. Dressed simply as to not ruin some good clothes, Kanna wears a simple black nightgown with her hair braided into two buns adorned with black cala-lilies. "Good news! Oh, good for me, not for you." Kanna claps her hands together, looking down at Morgan, who has immediately shrunken into herself at the sight of Kanna. The ghoul had been a regular visitor until recent days, and the captain knew exactly what she was capable of, judging by the screams of those who stopped wailing for help. "We've gotta make room, since there's probably going to be an assassin or two lurking around our upcoming fight. The ghoul steps foward, placing an ice cold hand on each of Morgan's knees, a smile still plastered onto her face. "Sadly, we're going to have to let you go." Taking the opportunity, the trader lurches forward to ram her head into Kanna's face wih a momentarily satisfying crunch. To her surprise, the bardess does not react; Kanna simply presses her nose back into place, her smile falling. "How rude. How would you like it..." She reaches out with her other hand, gripping Morgan's nose between two of her fingers, her eyes devoid of any genuine mirth. "If I broke your nose?" A simple twist is all that is needed to sever the flesh with the ghoul's brute strength, and fresh screams rip out as flesh and cartilage are torn from her face and thrown haphazardly towards the doorway.

Meri was the last of the line of people to enter the lower levels of the fortress. While she moves through the halls with the other two women, the sound of Captain Morgan singing can be heard ever so faintly. The song grows louder but finds an abrupt stop when Quintessa enters the room, followed by Kanna and then finally Meri. The sour mood of the Captain was expected, Morgan had been held down in these dungeons for how long now? And she was kept alive for what reason? At this point there was no reason other than the cruel amusement of her captures. This time, Meri has no intention of doing much of anything but sitting and watching. It was Kanna’s time to shine. Meri claims a spot near Quintessa, only just narrowly avoiding being struck with the bloody bits of cartilage that Kanna has just ripped off of Morgan’s face. Kanna wanted to know if Meri was squeamish? She was going to learn very quickly that this was a scenario that did not seem to phase the blonde lycan in the slightest. The dirty work was being left to Kanna tonight, but that did not mean that Meri was going to behave herself. She meets Captain Morgan’s sea shanty with one of her own. “Oh, poor old woman your horse will die. Oh, poor old woman your horse will die. We’ll hoist him up to the main yardarm.” Given the sea-faring theme of both of Meri’s full-sleeved tattoos, her knowledge of shanties should not be shocking. This one was definitely picked with purpose...

Quintessa‘s expression remains unchanged as she silently watches, a pale hand reaching forward to pull a quill out of her inkwell. On a parchment before her, the changeling begins to catalog the damage done. To what end? A simple survey to determine how much a human could withstand before expiring. The loss of her nose wouldn’t kill Morgan, but it was cripplingly painful for the slaver. She trashes around for a moment, blood gushing from her face into the floor until her scream became a growl, still trying not to break under the torture she was being subjected to. White hot pain blurred her vision for a moment as she lifted her head to look up at Kanna, her bottom lip quivering as Meri began to sing her own tune. “...We'll drop ‘em down to the depths of the sea... “ Morgan continues in a whisper, the flow of blood slowing to a trickle that painted her lips as they moved. “Where the sharks'll have ‘er body and the devils have have ‘er soul…” Morgan knew now without a shadow of a doubt that they would kill her and it wouldn’t be quick. Behind Meri and Kanna, Quintessa sets down her quill and turns her head to face them, her smile more of a smirk already. “Y’know Morgan, I did a little digging around, found out a few interesting things about you.” The changeling pauses to bring a cigarette to her mouth. “You’ve been in the slave trade nearly 20 years right? Took many women and children from their homes during this time, especially around Rynvale.” Quintessa hadn’t told Kanna this detail yet, but knew she’d respond to it. “Any yet here you cling to this idea that your crimes are lesser than my own?” A snap of her fingers and a quick flicker of flame signaled that her clove cigarette was lit. “You’ve been destroying lives longer than I’ve even been around, and all for what? A pocket full of gold?”

Kanna had been dragging her bloody fingers around the hole where Morgan's nose once was out of nothing more than sheer morbid curiosity when Quintessa's words gave her pause. Without warning, Morgan is lifted from the ground by her throat. Kanna was short for a human, being barely five feet tall, but it was just enough for the trader's feet to be lifted from the floor and give her arms at least a momentary reprieve. "How interesting. You know, I myself come from an island just off of Rynvale. My first few weeks in Port Rynvale itself was not that fun, though." The bardess yanks Morgan down despite her still being chained to the ceiling. There are a pair of sickeing pops as Morgan's shoulders become dislocated. Such is the force of the pull that the the chain is ripped from the ceiling, smacking directly into the prisoner's injured face. To prevent her mobility, spiked roots emerge from the cracks in the dungeon, wrapping up to Morgan's knees to hold her in place. "Tell me, is this your brand?" Kanna unabashedly lifts her nightgown up to her chest. Despite her flirtatious facade, Kanna had always remained very conservative in her dress, and now it was easy to see why. Claw marks from a fight long past run up the side of one of her thighs, and across her abdomen, where the faint marks of stitching them closed still remain. Just on the bottom of her ribcage, though, is the outline of a faded branding.

Meri’s lips curl up into a wicked grin when Captain Morgan continues the shanty that the lycan had started. It’s just done far too quietly for Meri’s liking and so she continues to hum and chant right along with Morgan. “Ah come on, put a bit more spirit into it,” Meri states just before Quintessa begins to explain what she has learned about the Captain. During this time, Meri manages to still her tongue, taking the opportunity to try and sneak a peek at the notes that Quintessa was taking. Meri’s reasoning for doing this is actually pretty wholesome. She just wants to know what it is her adopted niece deems important enough to jot down in this exact moment. Regardless of how much of an in depth look Meri gets at Quintessa’s notebook, the blonde will retrieve her tarnished cigarette tin from the back pocket of her black pants. The tin is opened, a hand rolled smoke is retrieved along with the means to light it, and once all of this is accomplished? She’d offer the tin Quintessa’s direction. They may not be cloves, but it is the thought that counts sometimes, aye? Once Quintessa and Kanna have spoken their parts, Meri starts right back up with the Dead Horse shanty, taking it from the top and using her cigarette as though it were a conductor's baton. At least, that was its purpose when she was not actually smoking it. “Oh, poor old woman your horse will die. Oh, poor old woman your horse will die. We’ll hoist him up to the main yardarm.” Meri would continue on with this shanty for a bit, at least until Morgan died. Or she found a better way to psychologically harass the slave trader. Maybe if the woman before them was completely innocent Meri would actually show remorse and feel inclined to step in...but as Tessa has pointed out, Morgan’s crimes are egregious. None of what the lycan is witnessing seems to be causing upset, yet. There are points where Meri is definitely smirking. She does give pause in her singing of the shanty when the chains are literally ripped from the ceiling. Oh my.

Quintessa stands as Kanna rips Morgan down from the ceiling, the clattering of chains and rumble of bricks echoing throughout the room as the changeling steps closer, giving Meri all the access to her notes as possible. They were pretty mundane, mostly keeping track of vital signs and reactions to different stimuli. If Meri flipped through the pages she’d start getting into some of her other experiment notes, details for what nightshade poisoning did to different races and even more gruesome experiments done on some of the feral lycans Quintessa had captured. It seemed that developing silver-laced vampire blood had plenty of trial and error before she got the mixture just perfect. None of those notes would be any use for dealing with Morgan, though. Standed next to Kanna, Quintessa eyes the hole where the chains had just been yanked from, her only concern being the cost of repairs later. Meanwhile Morgan made a miserable groan as her arms were nearly ripped from her torso, hanging uselessly at her sides as she choked from Kanna’s grip around her throat. When her eyes fell upon Kanna’s brand Morgan’s face lit up with recognition. “Y-you…” Morgan struggles to gasp out, “I remember you…” A wheezing sound that was barely recognizable as a laugh escaped her. “I knew we should have hunted you down when you got away but I wasn’t captain back then… We were paid upfront so when you killed our boys we just considered it collateral damage…” Another sound that was almost laughter followed, “I knew it was a mistake allowing you to live after that…”

Kanna flexes her hands to allow her dress to fall back around her ankles, the joints in her fingers crackling as she takes this haughtiness in. She could remember it clearly, the two she had killed had openly discussed what her resale value would be and whether she, having not even developed, would be worth more if rented out to brothels. The ghoul steps closer, cupping Morgan's bloody face in her icy palms. "Hm. I suppose you do deserve some credit. Had you not captured me, I would not be carrying the essence of Sagaribana within myself." A curious statement, as both other women knew this to be the name of the sword of the other resident of the Misshapen Fortress. The roots curl up further until they envelop Morgan's knees completely, then press inwards, slowly crushing the kneecaps. "Tell me the name of the buyer. It must have been a considerable sum if a girl who caused such little casualties was that memorable to you."

Meri was slightly more disturbed with the notes that she was reading in Quintessa’s journal than Morgan being brutally beaten to death. No offense to Kanna’s beautiful work. Meri’s just seen some things in her years. Quintessa’s notes about feral lycans get Meri thinking. It’s not that Meri is unfamiliar with the fact that people often like to perform such experiments. And at least Quintessa was using feral lycans. It was still enough to get Meri thinking. Meri turns away from the book, leaving it open on the page that contains Quintessa’s notes on her feral lycan experiments. The blonde also finally abandons the constant repetition of the Dead Horse shanty, her point had surely been made by now. Plus all that talking? Parched the throat, she left her flask of whiskey upstairs. Instead the blonde moves closer to Kanna and Quintessa, close enough that she can flick the remains of her cigarette onto the Captain. Another smirk pulls at Meri’s red lips. “She sure does like to play with her food,” Meri quips, though she’s aware that this has taken a more personal turn than expected.

Quintessa || Morgan screams as the pressure crushes her knees, bones, muscles, and tendons breaking, tearing, rupturing as the vines wrapped tighter. “I don’t frakking know!” She calls, blood mixed with spit splattering from her mouth. “That whole job was scuffed from the start- I told them not to take it, that the four-eyed mage with the fake smile wasn’t to be trusted- Erraah!” A loud pop interrupts the woman’s speeches, her growls fading into a whimper as the pain overcame her. “Just finish me you little doxy bedswerver,” Morgan grinds her teeth together, blood and saliva still dribbling down her face, “That’s what we were probably going to do with you- sell you to a brothel or tie you up in the brig and let our boys have fun with you- It’s all you east-islander sluts are good for!” Morgan’s tactics had changed from trying not to agitate them to trying to piss Kanna off enough to kill her, but she didn’t expect Quintessa to wrap a section of chain around her fist and punch her right in the teeth, a few of them spilling out onto the floor in a bloody splash. The chain slowly falls from the changeling fingers as Morgan hangs her head, dripping blood helplessly onto the brick below her. “Careful with that attitude or I’ll make sure you stay hanging up here another few weeks.” That was a bluff, of course, Quintessa already decided Morgan’s fate would be for the bard to come up with on her own. Turning back away from the prisoner to glance at her notebook, she gives Meri a cheeky smile and shrugs, knowing she surely must have read through them. “See anything interesting in there?” Quintessa asks, the venom in her voice quickly replaced by curiosity as her cigarette was returned to her mouth. It was quite different from the sketchbook her aunt had looked through already.

Kanna is still as Morgan spits at her. Despite not needing to breathe, the ghoul does so anyways in an attempt to calm herself. In her mind's eye, she can see herself being held down again as the searing metal is pressed into her flesh, the faded brands on the mummified corpses in a long-deserted house of horrors in the Frostmaw Wilds, the sobbing of a sole surivor that she and someone she loved had helped get to safety. Then the imagery shifts to a man with a phony smile and cold eyes hidden behind glasses only shaded in a rosy tint when it came to a certain elder vampiress. Kanna throws her left arm outward, and her friends in the earth follow her movements, throwing Morgan down onto the floor. Her cornflower eyes give off an eerie glow in the dimly lit chamber as she kneels down and tears the measly fabric provided to Quintessa's prisoners. Her fingers gently touch at Morgan's ribcage, then begin to sink further, further, and further in, until blood begins to bubble out. "Know this as well. The one who killed your boys in Cenril?" Kanna yanks her hand back and a loud crack reverberates in the cell over the sound of screams as a rib bone is ripped from its resting place, dripping with blood and sinew in Kanna's fist. "You can thank myself and Ranok of Rynvale for that." A smile graces her face again as she crunches into the wet bone in front of Morgan as if it were a carrot stick. Vines and roots slither up from the ground and crawl into the open cavity, where they would slither around the former captain's heart and put her out of her misery once and for all. The room is silent once Morgan is still, save for the dripping of blood from Kanna's hand. "That wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be." Kanna says softly, her voice devoid of emotion as her anger subsides to a familiar cold feeling.

Meri :: Even though Morgan has suffered greatly during her stay at Quintessa’s, it still pales in comparison to the amount of pain that the Captain has inflicted upon others during her career. The actual captured slaves were just one aspect. What about the family they were taken from? This is what Meri is musing on as Morgan finally meets her end. Death really is a mercy, even if most would label the actions of the three women tonight to be particularly cruel. Meri’s attention is on Quintessa long enough to respond to the changeling with a slow shrug and a lazy grin, “Oh plenty. But you’re family.” Meaning Meri was reserving judgement. It’s not like she ever hung out with the “good” crowd. Her brief stint with the Warrior’s Guild hardly counted. Quintessa’s notebook is not something that Meri dwells on for long, for Kanna is soon slipping a hand right into Morgan’s ribcage. Another grin pulls at the lycan woman’s lips, this woman fully formed and quite proud. It might be a trick that she herself cannot accomplish, but she’s seen it done and is aware that it is no easy feat. “Niiiice,” Meri says just before the Captain takes her last breath. “It never really is,” she says to Kanna with a bit of a shrug. “Anyway….” the blonde tilts her gaze to the upper levels of the fortress. “Drinks?”