RP:The Enemy of My Enemy
Part of the The God of Undeath Arc
Summary: After an unsettling wind howls through Cenril, Valrae reaches out to the only person she thinks might have answers; Gevurah. The drow matron and Mage’s Guild exile Lanlan arrive and the unlikely trio discuss the unusual weather. With no great joy from any party, they form a tense alliance.
A letter, arriving by way of a large gray owl with unnerving emerald eyes, has been delivered. It is addressed simply and sealed with the image of a winter bare ash tree stamped in indigo wax.
Gevurah,
While I’m sure you’re just as pleased to be receiving this letter as I am having written it, I would like a meeting with you. I feel we have matters to discuss regarding the unusual weather occurring in Cenril, and perhaps you might be willing to answer further questions regarding my aura.
Grace
A black letter written in silver ink arrives by bat. It has been folded onto itself three times so that the thick parchment doubles as letter and envelope. The exterior of the note bears no name. The back is sealed with a deep red wax emblazoned with the sigil of House D'Artes. The bat disappears in a puff of smoke, having completed its sole purpose in its brief, conjured life.
Grace--
Meet me at the wharf outside the castle at [eagle caw] in the evening on [buzz saw].
Matron Gevurah D'Artes
The word Matron is underscored three times.
Wharf to the Pier
As you step lightly onto the rocks, wary of slipping, you find them to be far more supportive in this location than most as they are piled to a higher acme at this particular spot, then trail down into the fisherman's pier. None of the waves, though raging at this point, reach even halfway up the rock's piled peak. To the north is a calm watered rest beyond the break of which you now stand. Peering down to the south, you notice various shiny objects which look much like gems. As they come better into view, you see they are various types of rocks, small and ovular, and as smooth as erosion could possibly make them. Millions of them are scattered throughout the sand, and are viewable every time the tide moves out into the vast oceans. To your east is a continuation of this wharf, and to the west is a tall, barely-standing structure.
Gevurah :: Initially, Gevurah didn’t recall the name ‘Grace’. All manner of people concealing all manner of motives seek her attention on a daily basis. However, two clues quickly jogged the drow’s memory: Grace is a surfacer name, and she is having trouble with her aura. Aha! There was a time -- was it really over a year ago? -- when the mystery of Grace’s aura would have been at the forefront of Gevurah’s esoteric interests. However, the trouble with Caluss rendered all other studies laughably small. And yet here in this letter are interests collide: the strange aura, and Caluss himself; Gevurah is sure he has something to do with the weather. And so it came to be that a lowly human (sorry, no one in Trist’oth knows or cares what a Provost is) received a prompt reply from the Matron. Gevurah quickly informed Lanlan of this development and insisted he come with her. They traveled on lizard-back to halve the time it would take to reach the festering port. The familiar stench of smell of poverty, opiates, and hard labor has been intensified by the sticky smell of disease. Gevurah presses a perfumed black handkerchief to her nose. She wears black riding leathers and a heavily enchanted piwafwi. Her stark white hair is pulled high and tight into three braids gathered at the crown of her head. She glances to her left towards Lanlan but says nothing. Throughout the trip she has been silently anxious, eager to see what Grace knows about the wind, if she knows anything at all.
Lanlan flicks the butt of a cigarette and blows a dusty gray plume into the air forcefully, pushing the smoke as far away as possible. A disappointing relapse, but he needed something to blame his moods on. Something other than his circumstances, that lately were just wrong. Unfair. While he waited, he leaned his forearms on the wooden railing at the base of the pier. He picked them up once, making sure he wasn't leaning into anything foul, then replaced. They all knew the wind was weird that day. It was, but it could've been a natural fluctuation. It was so easy to blame every misfortune on the God of Undeath, especially when everything lately seemed unprecedented, brand new. Every day he'd wonder how Caluss was influencing their life in minute ways they wouldn't expect, so he began expecting that everything bad was Caluss's doing. Even minor inconveniences had to be caused by some malicious external agitator. Or they were just the results of unseen machinations. The chilling gusts though, were the first ones corroborated by someone who wasn't prompted. He was afraid it was Caluss, but he also hoped it was, just to have an answer. A tiny pillar of ash flaked into his black brocade jerkin, and he swiped at it lazily, and flicked the cigarette away. He huffed, anxious to achieve some congruity with someone. "We can't be the ones waiting," he said, like a warning, "this is her dam slum isn't it?" A moment passed and he flipped another cigarette into his mouth, and inhaled as it lit itself.
Valrae, ever illusioned as Grace, arrives late. Not terribly, but late nevertheless. The witch was layered against the unseasonable cold, an indigo cloak wrapped tightly around her, the hood pulled over dark hair that had been pulled into a neat plait. And as a new, mysterious illness spread through the slums and refugee camps, likely having to do with the ominous and never ending wind, Valrae found it prudent to cover her face with a cloth mask. She carried a large satchel over her left shoulder, her fingers idly toying with the clasp. It held the emerald skull she’d used recently in a ritual at the beach that had gone sideways on her and left her with more questions than answers, which inevitably prompted the letter she’d sent to the drow matron. She hadn’t wanted to. After the genocide of the Razurath, Valrae had been mistrustful of the drowess. Lanlan’s treachery only furthered her poor opinion, as she considered that to be her fault as well. But with a hunch that the origin of the wind somehow tied into the ruins of the castle, she really had been left with no other choice. When she finally arrives, just in time to hear Lanlan’s complaining, her lips quirk into a hidden satisfied smile. “Terrible habit,” She says, her voice muffled behind her mask, by way of greeting. She steps forward from the shadows but leaves comfortable space between them and resists the urge to reach for the ash wand that was tucked at her side.
Gevurah replies curtly when Valrae says ‘terrible habit’ with “Yes, arriving late when meeting your betters is a terrible habit.” She purses her black-painted lips as she looks Grace over. The drowess is keen to observe the relationship between Lanlan and Grace. She knows they were once guildmates, that is until the guild turned on Lanlan over trivial disagreements. ‘The surfacers are temperamental and weak,’ she had consoled him, which only annoyed him because it was evident to her that he needed to be consoled, a fact he tried his best to conceal with the illusion of a stiff upper lip. She has not consoled himself, but is aware that the guild’s betrayal left a bruise on her lover, and she is curious to see if Grace’s presence makes the bruise throb tenderly. Having run through the drow formality of exchanging insults, Gevurah gets right to the point and speaks a question like a command, “What do you know of the wind.” A gust whips against the trio and the matron tightens her piwafwi around her small, elven frame.
Lanlan knew she was smiling, he could see it in her eyes. She might've even been laughing, thinking he picked up this habit right after quitting the Mage's Guild. She would be right, but that didn't mean they were connected. "Smoking is good for you, its a defense. Killing pathogens before they take hold in my body. But you keep relying on that tiny piece of cloth." Lanlan waited eagerly for Gevurah to finish talking, so he could extend the drow formality for a beat. "Yes," he said behind a puff of smoke, "what -has- the guild learned. So few qualified members, and even fewer now, isn't it. Hm." The wind whips his floppy hair around and blows him closer to Gevurah, or he makes it appear that way.
Valrae, ever eager to meet a challenge, nearly rolls her eyes but manages to contain herself. She would play nice, if only to get the answers she needed. Her illusioned eyes slide toward Lan, her own interest not very dissimilar to Gevurah’s own. He had been her guildmate, his betrayal had stung to even her, particularly on the night he’d stopped her attempts at retrieving the man that had dropped dead in front of them all on Samhian night. In surprise, the witch’s brows wing up and she snorts, laughing just as Lan had suspected she might have wanted too. The laugh dies quickly though, cut short by his implied knowledge of the guilds recent trouble with Larket. When Gevurah poses her question, a little too harshly for Valrae to care for, her eyes narrow. “I’ve come to ask you the same,” She replies curtly. “As I assumed you might have a hand in it…” Her hand tightens on the clasp of her bag. “The guild has nothing to do with this,” They could hardly afford to extend their worries to Cenril, they were falling apart as things stood currently, but she wouldn’t care for either of her present company to know that. “I performed a ritual,” Valrae stars hesitantly, unsure of how much or how little she could afford to offer, “But it left me with more questions than answers. The fire revealed only screaming,” She wouldn’t bother clarifying that the vision could have come from the unpredictable magic of the skull itself.
Gevurah snorts when Valrae says the guild has nothing to do with this. “Of course, this is power beyond their grasp,” she says curtly in her harshly-accented common. “No. This is-” A deafening howls drowns out her voice. It is a wail so terrible it strikes like a death knell on mortal spines, mortals like Gevurah herself. She shivers and the cold is not at fault this time. Prior to her run-ins with Caluss, this mortal drow felt immortal compared to the fellow creatures that inhabit this spinning rock. What is a human compared to a drow matron? What is a wood elf? What is a gnome? But Caluss has humbled Gevurah bitterly and her skin no longer feels invulnerable. The howling dies down and she continues in a more collaborative tone, “This is not me, but you must suspect this truth already. You know that this,” She gestures at the gloomy sky that darkens by a force more powerful than clouds, “this is the work of a god.”
Lanlan scoffs indignantly, dispersing another white twister into the night sky. "Blame us for defending ourselves, blame us for your genocide, blame us for the dam weather..." He shakes his head in disappointment. Secretly, he'd hoped that Grace might've had a sliver of doubt about his trial. She clearly wanted to blame the drow for anything as much as he wanted to blame Caluss. The thought cheers him up a bit, that he is to her what Caluss is to him. Lanlan senses she's holding something back, from her body language, or from her hesitation. "Of course, what could fire tell you? That nonsense is a waste of time." Rituals like that, praying for the wind to tell you what the gods wouldn't? They amounted to superstition, as far as he was concerned. Probably get whatever answer you wanted to see! "But you know something." He advances a step holding onto the railing. "What're you hiding in that bag?" Maybe a weapon to use against them if she could somehow fulfill the prophecy she wanted.
Valrae’s ready retort is torn from them by the sudden gust of wind. It chills her to the core but the witch stubbornly refuses to bring her arms around herself. Instead, she subtly pulls her cloak tighter around herself. Her eyes follow Gevurah’s gesture, her head tilting up to look at the looming dark sky. Beyond the glow of the witch barrier it boiled menacingly. Valrae’s heart sank with dread and it knotted at her throat. If Gevurah wasn’t the source and didn’t offer any answers, who was? The witch’s frustration rises and warms her. Her hand fists at her side. “What reason would the Gods have to be angry with Cenril?” She asks, refusing to admit what she already knew. Lanlan’s words land like a slap to the face. She blamed *Gevurah* for some of those things, that was true enough, but not Lan. The hurt was clear behind her eyes, though her frown remained hidden from them both. And there were doubts, about Lan’s trail, about what Quintessa had witnessed against Kasyr. But there were no doubts about what had happened the night he’d chosen to protect Gevurah over the interests of the guild on all Hallows eve. His snideness about her craft landed more softly than his accusation, easily brushed off from a lifetime of others considering her magic inferior. The witch regains her composure and gently pushes her bag behind her. She holds her ground as Lanlan advances a step. “What's in my bag has nothing to do with this,” She evades. “The issue at hand is this wind. It isn’t natural. Cenril has never been this cold, this is not ordinary weather… People are becoming ill,” She pauses, “From the cold, I assume…”
Gevurah bites her tongue as Lanlan provokes Valrae. She knows he needs this chance to blacken her eye though it embarrasses the matron that Lanlan cares so much about the Guild. Why? Why? The illusionist has no luck. The priestess shakes her head doubtfully at Valrae’s final guess. “Perhaps it is the cold, but I think not. A few years ago,” she glances at Lanlan sidelong to see if he believes there is any reason to withhold information from Grace, but Gevurah’s mind is made up and she continues regardless of what he says or does. They need allies. “A few years ago an old necromantic cult, The Order of the Shade, re-appeared. Do you remember when Xalious tried to hold, uh...um-” she snaps her fingers as she tries to think of the common word, “Your government, not monarchy but the silly one, with the pieces of paper-- Democracy! Election! Xalious tried to do the election and the democracy ritual was interrupted by the summoning of a forgotten god, Alithyk Caluss. He is the God of Undeath. I believe he is behind this.” Gevurah’s evidence is thin and guarded close to her heart. “Caluss is the god of undeath. His will is that everything should be undead. He runs counter to my god, Vakmatharas, who maintains a clear demarcation between life and death. Undeath is an aberration.”
Lanlan doesn't bother pursuing any further. One step away from Gevurah left him weak to the cold wind. She didn't appear to be threatening them with it. "Fine, then we're -finally- concerned about what matters." Whether or not Lanlan was just as involved in the petty spats between guildmates was irrelevant. When he lost his standing at the guild, the entire world was affected. "And this is isolated to Cenril, is it?" Of course it was, he recently settled on plans to develop an industry here. Somehow, everything was connected to Lanlan at all times. It was obvious when you thought about it. He made his points, for now. It wasn't Grace who his righteous indignation was reserved for anyways. He would hear Lanlan soon enough. But Caluss was the priority, and if Grace could understand that, then she needed to know certain things. Lanlan nodded at Gevurah. Tell her everything. "He's left his mark on the world, and we know he isn't finished. And we know he has agents. Even outside of his realm."
Valrae can only feel her heart sinking further when Gevurah voices the fears she’d refused to bring toward the light. If this illness was supernatural, what could it mean for Cenril’s future? Her anger has died and the chill returns. Her eyes roll at Gevurah’s clear disdain for democracy. Tyrant, her mind whispered without any real venom. Like Gevurah, the witch was hesitant to push back at any potential ally. There might have been a time Valrae would have said she would die before looking to the drowess for help, but times change and her pride would never be a barrier to her people… Not again. She’d learned that lesson in the fire. “Caluss,” She tests the name on her tongue. She answers Lan’s question with more of her own. “What use would he have with Cenril? Why here? I’ve traveled from Cenril to Xalious and I’ve not seen a hint of beyond here.” With the talk of life and death, the witch turns thoughtful. Was she considered undead? For her, the line between life and death had been all but erased. Again, her mind turns to another question. “My aura,” She takes a step toward the matron. “You said something about my aura before… What do you see?”
Gevurah meets Grace’s gaze coolly to mask the sudden racing of her heart. Lanlan knows that Gevurah cannot cast the spell she needs to look at Grace’s aura, not here anyway. Days ago, when the wind first started, the priestess tried to read a feline’s aura here in Cenril, and the rudimentary spell failed. That’s when Gevurah knew this was the work of Caluss. He nullifies her own Vakmatharas-granted, but she cannot confess this to anyone, not even a new potential ally. Only Lanlan knows the truth. Gevurah goes through the motions of twitching her fingers in the correct esoteric shapes, of whispering the spell in a strange dead language, of peering around Grace’s figure to read her aura, when in truth nothing is happening. She simply repeats a more intense version of what she saw last time, “An ill fit, like a bad marriage. Unsustainable.” What a pair of allies these three make: a priestess whose powers fail when in the grasp of the enemy, a witch whose soul rejects her body, and an insecure illusionist wrapped up in self delusions that revolve around his ego.
Lanlan quirks a brow at Valrae, wondering why she would ask such a silly question. "Isn't it obvious? Nobody cares about the people in Cenril. It isn't just the gods who prey on the people here. It's everyone. Some think the biggest problem with Cenril is all the Cenrilites." In Cenril you were either a perpetrator or a victim. "It doesn't expect us to fight for Cenril. It should've had its way with its people and had a strong foothold on this realm, if it wasn't for us." Obviously no one expected Gevurah and Lanlan to fight for Cenril. For a moment Lanlan thinks Gevurah might give away her weakness, and he interjects quickly on her behalf. "Humans smell. They all have an unfortunate aura of stink." But then she simply bluffs her way out of it. Oh well, find a lie if there is one. Humans do stink, naturally.
Valrae mistakes Gevurah’s sudden coolness for concentration in magics, suspicious of the matron in many things but never her power. The answer she receives is not welcome but her reaction to the news belies her own suspicion of the truth. There had been instances, reasons enough to believe the body she’d been reborn in was rejecting her soul. Little things, like the unwanted twitch in her arm or the general sense of unrest… However, the most recent symptom was the most concerning. Underneath the illusion Valrae’s emerald eyes had begun to fade. The greens were muddied in patches of brown now. What this meant for her remained a large, looming question. Not unlike the trouble that plagued Cenril. But she knew which one she would focus her attention on answering. “I couldn’t find answers on my own,” She begins, turning the subject away from herself abruptly, but Lan interrupts her. She scowls. “Says someone from the Underdark,” Disdain drips from her tone. “Perhaps he would have started there but realized no one would care or know. And I don’t stink.” It felt important to clarify. The witch rolls her eyes, pettily considering paying him back for the donkey braying curse he’d slapped her with the last time they’d spoken. Deciding to take the high road, she lets the idea pass without action. For now. “Regardless,” Valrae is eager to move on, more interested in finding solutions than trading insults. “Finding answers on my own hasn’t panned out… Perhaps if we worked together, something could be done.” It burned her to the soul to offer the suggestion, but she was ready and willing to try anything for answers that would lead to solutions. Anything before the illness that had begun to spread took any worse of a turn and it was too late.
Gevurah nods at Grace’s suggestion perhaps too eagerly, a consequence of being relieved her bluff worked. “Let’s look into this separately, stay in touch, then reconvene here to formulate a plan.” She looks between Lanlan and Grace and despite the animosity knows they will work civilly together. Surfacer emphasis on teamwork and collaboration may come in handy when fighting a god. To that end she adds, “If we have other allies to call upon, now is the time to do it.” Her tone suggests Grace is about to be dismissed.
Lanlan would readily accept a partnership, since she asked for it and not himself or Gevurah. "This is a threat to all of us. Whatever assistance you can provide to us, we will accept it. No matter how small." Lanlan takes another puff of his cigarette and coughs, then hacks. "Excuse me...I guess there can be too much of a good thing, can't there."
Valrae struggles to keep her eyes from rolling toward the back of her head again. Did the Drow never tire of their constant need to hurl insults? “I’d suggest you do the same then,” She replies curtly. To Lanlan she only frowns and nods, refusing to meet his insult again, remembering a time when they had shared at least a small sense of comradery and mutual respect. “I’ll do what I can and will await your missive then,” Without further word, Valrae slips away into the shadows of Cenril’s slums. However tempted, she did not look back.